What are you trying to do above the atmosphere?

A satellite servicer is a robot in orbit, so people have started asking us about this market. Here is how we handle it honestly: Katherine listens and helps frame the problem, and when it is real we make introductions. In this market we do not configure missions, recommend providers, or quote costs, because a wrong answer here is a seven figure one.

Looking for drones instead? That side of the house is this way

Notes on the market above the atmosphere

Getting a payload to orbit
The launch is the famous part and increasingly the simplest one. What surrounds it decides your year.
The robot in orbit
Life extension, inspection, relocation and deorbit are machine tending at 28,000 kilometers per hour.
The ground segment is half the project
A satellite you cannot talk to is debris that cost you money. The unglamorous half of every mission is on the ground.
Do you need a satellite, or the data?
The honest first question in this market, and the one that dissolves a surprising number of missions.
Why things fail up there
The reason we make introductions in this market instead of recommendations, stated as plainly as we can.
End of life in orbit
Disposal used to be a virtue. It is becoming a requirement, and it belongs in the plan before launch, not after.

The work, on orbit

The Hubble Space Telescope berthed in the shuttle cargo bay during a servicing mission, Earth behind — Hubble in the shuttle's cargo bay for servicing. Five missions kept one telescope alive for three decades; servicing existing assets is the market's oldest good idea. Photo: NASA.

The Canadarm2 robotic arm with the Dextre robotic hand extended over Earth — Canadarm2 and Dextre, the station's robot hand, at work over the Sahara. Robotic servicing is not science fiction; it is scheduled maintenance. Photo: NASA.

A cargo capsule on approach to the station high above clouds — A cargo capsule on final approach. Rendezvous and proximity operations are the choreography every servicing and inspection mission borrows. Photo: NASA.