New space industry emerges: on-orbit servicing

"It's literally throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars," Al Tadros, vice president of space infrastructure and civil Space at a company called SSL, said this month at a meeting in the US capital of key players in the emerging field of on-orbit servicing, or repairing satellites while they are in space.In 2021, his company will launch a vehicle -- as part of its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program -- that is capable of servicing two to three dozen satellites in a