Space Robots Are Strapping Jetpacks on Dying Satellites to Keep Them Flying

A New Kind of Space Rescue

A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation on July 21 to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up. It sounds like science fiction — a robotic mechanic cruising through the void to resuscitate hardware that would otherwise be written off. But this is very real, and it could reshape how the satellite industry operates for decades to come.

Launched by SpaceX, Northrop Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle — dubbed MRV — and its jetpacks will spend the next year angling into the proper orbit 22,300 miles above Earth, where hundreds of satellites orbit at this so-called geosynchronous orbit, matching the speed of Earth's rotation to keep to the same part of the sky for continuous coverage. That's the sweet spot where communications satellites live, and it's where this mission will do its work.

How the Jetpack Technology Actually Works

For its debut flight, the spacecraft was accompanied by three electric-propelled jetpacks that peeled away separately following liftoff. Like the MRV, the jetpacks will use their own xenon gas thrusters to get to the desired orbit. Once in place, the jetpacks will wait for the robot to grab them, one at a time, and plug them into their designated satellites. The choreography is extraordinarily precise — a robotic arm reaching out in the silence of space to dock a thruster pack onto a satellite that was never designed to receive one.

Each jetpack — the size of a washing machine — will provide the necessary oomph for an out-of-gas satellite to keep operating for several more years instead of retiring. The Mission Robotic Vehicle itself is comparable in size to a minivan, while its nine-meter robotic arms are capable of capturing modules and attaching them to a satellite's body. The new MRV features two robotic arms and other tools built by the Naval Research Laboratory and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

If it works, it will be a boon for satellite operators SES of Luxembourg and Optus of Australia, saving them millions of dollars in replacement costs. Communications satellites in geostationary orbit can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and launch, and a fuel shortage can end a satellite's useful life even when the hardware itself still works. Strapping on a jetpack is a fraction of that cost — and that math is hard to argue with.

A Growing Industry Takes Shape

This is the second satellite-saving mission to launch this month: Another company's three-armed spacecraft rocketed into orbit on July 3 to boost NASA's Swift Observatory so it doesn't crash to Earth this fall. Two satellite rescue missions in a single month signals that this is no longer a niche experiment — it's becoming a legitimate sector of the space economy.

This is Northrop Grumman's latest foray into the satellite-servicing business. In 2019 and again in 2020, the company launched a pair of spacecraft that latched onto faltering communication satellites and steered them, providing extra years of life. The MRV takes that concept much further, with capabilities that go well beyond simple propulsion. The MRV will expand customer options for satellite servicing and enable new in-space operations including robotic satellite inspection, relocation, repair, debris removal, upgrades, experimentations, and in-space assembly.

What This Means for the Future of Space

The MRV launched with the advanced processing needed to support future AI-powered operations. Northrop Grumman uses AI to increase reliability, reduce costs, and increase mission assurance — and soon, enable never-before-seen in-space servicing on future MRV operations. The machine learning aboard the vehicle is designed to grow smarter with each mission it completes.

For the satellite industry, the test is straightforward: whether the savings from deferred replacement launches, and the operational value of keeping a satellite on station, are enough to turn in-orbit servicing from a niche experiment into a routine part of fleet management. If this mission succeeds, the case for building satellites with servicing in mind from day one becomes nearly impossible to ignore — and the era of throwing away billion-dollar hardware simply because it ran out of gas may finally be coming to an end.