30 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awst
A
concept proposed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems
to ferry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS)
is drawing interest from commercial space enterprises,including at least one potential backer who operates high above
the ISS in geostationary orbit.
SES of Luxembourg, the largest sat-
ellite fleet operator by revenue, says
concepts like the low-Earth-orbiting Ju-
piter space tug Lockheed is proposing
under NASA’s commercial cargo pro-
gram could serve a variety of functions
aimed at lowering the cost of building,
launching and operating satellites
36,000 km (22,369 mi.) over the equator.
The concept could also help commer-
cial operators refresh payload technolo-
gies that become obsolete only a few
years after a satellite is launched.
“The idea here is that with some-
thing like Jupiter, I could swap out a
satellite payload in seven-year cycles
in order to update it,” says Martin Hal-
liwell, CTO at SES. “We are well-ad-
vanced as to how we can do that with
concepts of low-Earth-orbit injection
and orbital transfer vehicles.”
Lockheed Martin has proposed the
Jupiter concept under NASA’s second
round of commercial resupply services
(CRS) contracts to deliver cargo to
the ISS starting in 2018. The proposal
would combine the company’s planetary
spacecraft bus—used on missions like
Maven—with a robotic arm from Can-
ada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associ-
ates and a pressurized module built by
Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy.
Launched on an Atlas V, Jupiter
could loiter in orbit indefinitely after
delivering its haul to the station. While
awaiting periodic resupply runs of pres-
surized and unpressurized cargo mod-
ules on subsequent Atlas launches, the
spacecraft could conduct in-orbit dem-
os with hosted payloads or deploy small
spacecraft into low Earth orbit (LEO).
James Crocker, Lockheed Martin
vice president and general manager
for the space division’s new interna-
tional unit, says that since the Jupiter
concept was unveiled in early March,
he has been inundated with ideas as
to how it could serve the private sec-
tor and international interests beyond
NASA’s cargo-resupply requirements.
“We really see this as a proving
ground for those types of commercial
operations,” Crocker says, adding that
Lockheed Martin is eyeing future op-
portunities to host payloads with the
Jupiter tug and has developed a plug-Service Industry
Fleet operators eye low-Earth-orbit space tugs
for satellite delivery, refueling, upgrades
SPACEand-play interface to do that, which
could be demonstrated in LEO. He also
says the company plans to refuel Jupi-
ter on each mission, demonstrating the
potential to refuel satellites in orbit.
“If we can show in LEO that we can
make these transfers reliably and ef-
ciently, that’s going to give insurers and
operators a lot of confidence,” he says.
The Jupiter tug could be used to
move satellites from one orbital slot to
another or to retire them into a grave-
yard orbit—capabilities that could
prolong the service life of spacecraft.
The vision behind Jupiter, accord-
ing to Crocker, is to target a range of
requirements that will make it viable
beyond the space station’s planned re-
tirement date in 2024. “Jupiter is a sys-
tem that is more than a one-trick pony,”
he says. “People have gone out and of-
fered to refuel satellites or to move sat-
ellites. But if that is the only job it does,
it doesn’t close the business case.”
In 2011, MDA unveiled a deal with
fleet operator Intelsat to provide sat-
ellite refueling with a proposed Space
Infrastructure Servicing (SIS) vehicle.
Within a year, however, Intelsat aban-
doned the SIS project.
“A satellite at the end of life has
technologies that are 10-15 years old,
so we tend to ask for a low cost per-
kilogram of fuel,” says Intelsat CTO
Thierry Guillemin. “For the in-orbit
servicer, the price-per-kilogram needs
to be high enough to get a return on
investment, and that’s the challenge.”
Still, Guillemin says, Intelsat re-
mains interested in the broader con-
cept and is working with companies to
develop such capabilities. He says the
company has discussed the potential
of ViviSat’s Mission Extension Vehicle
(MEV) concept, a project supported by
a joint venture of Orbital ATK and U.S.
Space that would extend in-orbit life by
refueling or possibly moving satellites.
While MEV has been slow to get of
the ground, Guillemin says ATK’s merg-
er with Orbital Sciences Corp. in Janu-
ary could lend credibility to the project.
“Orbital is a systems integrator, and the
company knows about operations as
well,” he said.
For Jupiter, however, Crocker sees
the potential to do far more than refuel
or service satellites in Earth’s orbit. He
says the concept could provide com-
mercial resupply systems for NASA or
other government space agencies pur-
suing manned missions to deep space.
“When we designed this for the long-LOCKHEED MARTIN SPACE SYSTEMSAmy Svitak Washington and Paris
Lockheed Martin’s concept for an ISS
space tug has drawn the interest of
private companies, notably commercial
fleet operator SES.