Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky.
Speaker 2: So I want you to imagine for just a second
Speaker 2: that you've walked into a dealership, right and you decide
Speaker 2: to buy a brand new, absolute, top of the line
Speaker 2: luxury car.
Speaker 3: Okay, like a real high end, custom built situation exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean we are talking state of the art engineering here.
Speaker 2: You spend a ridiculous amount of money on it, literally
Speaker 2: millions of dollars. You custom order all the features, the
Speaker 2: leather is completely perfect, the electronics are you smarter than
Speaker 2: most desktop computers, and it just drives like an absolute.
Speaker 3: Dream sounds like a great investment, honestly it does.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. There is one tiny, completely absurd
Speaker 2: catch to this transaction. The manufacturer has completely welded the
Speaker 2: gas tank shut.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So there's there's no fuel cap at.
Speaker 2: All, none, zero, no access port, whatsoever. You basically drive
Speaker 2: it off the lot, knowing that there is absolutely no
Speaker 2: physical way to ever put more fuel into.
Speaker 3: That machine, which is just I mean, that's financial.
Speaker 2: Insanity, right, and you just accept it. You drive this
Speaker 2: incredible machine for years. Yeah, maybe you get a solid
Speaker 2: decade out of it, pulling massive value from the investment.
Speaker 3: Because it functions perfectly otherwise, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the engine is flawless, the transmission is buttery smooth,
Speaker 2: the computers are sharp. But eventually, you know, inevitably, the
Speaker 2: laws of physics catch up with you, and that needle
Speaker 2: finally hits empty.
Speaker 3: And because you can't refuel it.
Speaker 2: Because you can't put gas in it, your only option, literally,
Speaker 2: your only option, is to pull over onto the shoulder
Speaker 2: of the highway, turn off the engine, walk away, and
Speaker 2: just leave a multi million dollar masterpiece to sit in
Speaker 2: the dirt.
Speaker 3: And rot, and then go buy a new one.
Speaker 2: And then go back to the dealership and buy a
Speaker 2: brand new one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if any industry on Earth actually operated that way,
Speaker 3: we would, I mean, we'd call it a scam. You
Speaker 3: would never accept that level of built in obsolescence in
Speaker 3: your daily life. It just defies basic economic logic.
Speaker 2: But the wild thing is historically this exact throwaway culture.
Speaker 2: It's been precisely how humanity has managed our most expensive,
Speaker 2: most complex machines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really has.
Speaker 2: For over half a century. This is exactly how we
Speaker 2: have treated the multimillion dollar satellites orbiting our planet. I mean,
Speaker 2: once the fuel on board is gone, the satellite is
Speaker 2: just dead.
Speaker 3: We literally abandoned the car on the side of the.
Speaker 2: Cosmic highways exactly, we just walk away.
Speaker 3: And it's driven entirely by the unforgiving physics of space travel. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and just the sheer cost of getting mass out of
Speaker 3: Earth's gravity.
Speaker 2: Well, right, because it takes so much effort just to
Speaker 2: get it up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you spend all your energy just surviving the violent
Speaker 3: vibration of a rock at launch. Historically, you send a
Speaker 3: machine into the void, and the void is a one
Speaker 3: way trip.
Speaker 2: There's no triple A to call.
Speaker 3: No, you can't send a mechanic up there. Once it's
Speaker 3: up there, it is completely on its own. It's a
Speaker 3: sealed system just ticking down to its eventual death.
Speaker 2: Well, the era of abandoning that car on the side
Speaker 2: of the highway is officially ending, like right now.
Speaker 3: It's a massive shift it is.
Speaker 2: The reality we are stepping into this month is staggering.
Speaker 2: We are basically witnessing the birth of a brand new
Speaker 2: orbital economy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, orbital tow trucks exactly.
Speaker 2: We are talking about robotic salvage operators, tow trucks, and
Speaker 2: space mechanics actively jumping into the void to fix things.
Speaker 2: It's a fundamental shift in how we manage the space
Speaker 2: above our heads.
Speaker 3: And July twenty twenty six is really proving to be
Speaker 3: the absolute turning point for this transition. We're currently watching
Speaker 3: two incredibly groundbreaking missions happening simultaneously.
Speaker 2: Right now, which is just so cool to watch unfold.
Speaker 3: It really is. We have private companies to de'soying these
Speaker 3: highly specialized spacecraft essentially acting as robotic service stations and
Speaker 3: deploying orbital jet packs to go out track down aging
Speaker 3: technology and physically breathe new life into.
Speaker 2: Them and saving a fortune in the process.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're talking about saving billions of dollars in replacement
Speaker 3: costs and entirely rewriting the rule book on you know,
Speaker 3: how long the spacecraft is supposed to live.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's unpack this and look at the mechanics
Speaker 2: of how they're actually pulling this off, because honestly, the
Speaker 2: logistics feel like something ripped straight out of a sci
Speaker 2: fi novel.
Speaker 3: The really do.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the big one, the Triple A of space.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, July twenty first, twenty twenty six, we saw
Speaker 2: a massive launch out of Cape Canaveral in Florida. A
Speaker 2: SpaceX Falcon nine rocket blasted off. But it wasn't carrying
Speaker 2: your typical communications satellite, and it wasn't you know, a
Speaker 2: telescope looking out into the deep universe. It was carrying
Speaker 2: a piece of hardware called the MRV.
Speaker 3: The Mission Robotic Vehicle designed and built by Northrop Grumman.
Speaker 3: And the MRV is a completely different beat compared to
Speaker 3: the sort of passive technology we usually hurl into orbit.
Speaker 2: Right, Usually things just sit there, Yeah.
Speaker 3: A traditional satellite of design to look down at the
Speaker 3: Earth or look out at the stars and largely just
Speaker 3: stay out of the way of everything else. But the
Speaker 3: MRV is designed to actively hunt down other human made machines.
Speaker 3: It's like a predator, an active predator, yes. But for maintenance.
Speaker 2: To give you a sense of scale for this thing,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture a heavy duty commercial minivan
Speaker 2: that's essentially the main central body the chassis of the MRV.
Speaker 3: Basically a flying minivan.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But bolted onto this minivan are two massive, highly
Speaker 2: articulated robotic arms and they are ten feet long, so
Speaker 2: about three meters each. So basically, have a minivan with
Speaker 2: giant mechanical arms hurtling through the freezing vacuum of space.
Speaker 3: And those arms are a staggering piece of engineering on
Speaker 3: their own, really, right, because think about what happens to
Speaker 3: machinery in space. We take lubrication for granted.
Speaker 2: On Earth, right, you just add some oil.
Speaker 3: Exactly, if you have a robotic joint, you grease it.
Speaker 3: But in a vacuum, liquid lubricants instantly boil off or
Speaker 3: they freeze solid.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And furthermore, a satellite moving in and out of
Speaker 3: Earth's shadow experiences temperature swings of hundreds of degrees in
Speaker 3: a matter of minutes.
Speaker 2: This sounds brutal on the metal.
Speaker 3: It is the side of the robotic arm facing the
Speaker 3: sun is baking and physically expanding, while the side in
Speaker 3: the shadow is freezing and contracting. So getting a ten
Speaker 3: foot arm to maintain millimeter precision while fighting extreme thermal
Speaker 3: distortion and having no standard lubrication. It's a massive metallurgical achievement.
Speaker 2: That is just wild. And the thing is it didn't
Speaker 2: just go up as an empty tow truck. It brought
Speaker 2: its own payload with it. The MRV launched alongside three
Speaker 2: separate modules. You can think of them as orbital jetpacks
Speaker 2: or what Northrop calls mission extension pod the MEPs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and each of these jetpacks is roughly the size of
Speaker 2: a standard washing machine. But they aren't using traditional chemical
Speaker 2: rocket fuel. You aren't going to see a massive plume
Speaker 2: of fire shooting out of the back of them.
Speaker 3: No fort here.
Speaker 2: These are electric propelled modules equipped with Xenon gas thrusters.
Speaker 3: And the choice of Xenon is incredibly specific for this
Speaker 3: kind of mission. A chemical rocket like the Falcon nine
Speaker 3: that brought them all up there in the first place,
Speaker 3: relies on a violent chemical reaction.
Speaker 2: The big explosion exactly.
Speaker 3: You mix liquid oxygen and kerosene, ignite it, and you
Speaker 3: get an explosion that pushes you upward. It's incredibly powerful,
Speaker 3: but it burns through thousands of pounds of fuel in minutes.
Speaker 2: Right, which you can't really do if you're a washing
Speaker 2: machine up in space exactly.
Speaker 3: So, these jet packs use Hall effect thrusters. They take xenon,
Speaker 3: which is a very heavy, inert noble gas, and they
Speaker 3: trap electrons in a magnetic field and they use those
Speaker 3: electrons to ionize the xenon gas, essentially giving the gas
Speaker 3: a positive electrical.
Speaker 2: Charge, and then they use an electric field to shoot
Speaker 2: that ionized gas out the back of the thruster right.
Speaker 3: Exactly, It throws the xenon atoms backward at phenomenal speeds.
Speaker 3: We're talking sometimes upwards of thirty thousand to one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand miles per hour. Wow. Because xenon atoms are so
Speaker 3: heavy compared to other gases, shooting them out the back
Speaker 3: generates a very steady, highly efficient thrust. You aren't burning
Speaker 3: fuel in the traditional set.
Speaker 2: You are electrically accelerating atomic bowling balls out the back
Speaker 2: of the spacecraft.
Speaker 3: That is a perfect way to describe it, atomic bowling balls.
Speaker 2: So the choreography of how this all unfolds an orbit
Speaker 2: is what completely broke my brain when I was looking
Speaker 2: into this, Because the MRV and the three washing machine
Speaker 2: jet packs, they all go up together inside the faring
Speaker 2: and the Falcon nine. But once they hit the vacuum
Speaker 2: of space, they don't stay attached.
Speaker 3: No, they disperse. Following liftoff and insertion into the initial orbit,
Speaker 3: those three jet packs actually physically detach from the main
Speaker 3: MRV minivan.
Speaker 2: They just pop off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And because they have their own independent xenon thrusters
Speaker 3: and navigation systems, they don't need the MRV to carry
Speaker 3: them the rest of the way. They basically fly themselves
Speaker 3: out to their designated orbital parking spots and then what
Speaker 3: they position themselves and then just power down their main
Speaker 3: drives and wait.
Speaker 2: They just hang out in the void completely alone.
Speaker 3: Exactly, they wait for the MRV to do the heavy lifting.
Speaker 3: The MRV, the minivan with ten foot arms, is going
Speaker 3: to fly around, track down the first jetpack, use its
Speaker 3: robotic arms to physically grapple it, and then carry that
Speaker 3: jetpack over to a completely different, older, out of gas communication.
Speaker 2: Satellite like a dedicated delivery driver.
Speaker 3: Right. The MRV will then physically plug the new jetpack
Speaker 3: into the dying satellite, effectively giving it a brand new
Speaker 3: engine and gas tank. The old satellite can now steer again,
Speaker 3: and then the MRV is done with that one. Yes,
Speaker 3: Once it's securely attached, the MRV lets go of the jetpack,
Speaker 3: zips off into the void to find the second jetpack,
Speaker 3: and repeats the entire surgical process for another dying satellite.
Speaker 2: It's honestly like a handyman walking around your neighborhood carrying
Speaker 2: spare batteries plugging them into the dying smoke detectors in
Speaker 2: your house. Yeah, but the house is thousands of miles wide,
Speaker 2: pitch black, and float in a vacuum.
Speaker 3: This is a very large, very dangerous house.
Speaker 2: But this is where I have to pause and look
Speaker 2: at the logic of the operation. Because if these jetpacks
Speaker 2: have their own zeneon thrusters, right, and they have the
Speaker 2: onboard computer brains to peel away from the rocket and
Speaker 2: fly themselves to the right general orbit, yes they do,
Speaker 2: then why do we even need the giant minivan sized
Speaker 2: robot arm to plug them in? If the jet pet
Speaker 2: can fly, why can't it just fly right up to
Speaker 2: the dying satellite and dock itself.
Speaker 3: That points to the central mechanical nightmare of this entire industry.
Speaker 3: The limitation has nothing to do with the cutting edge
Speaker 3: technology of the new jet packs. Oh really, Yeah, the
Speaker 3: limitation is the archaic design of the old satellites they're
Speaker 3: trying to save. The communication satellites currently running out of
Speaker 3: gas were built ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Ah different era of tech.
Speaker 3: Completely different. Back then, the concept of orbital docking was
Speaker 3: strictly reserved for massive government projects like the International Space
Speaker 3: Station or the Space Shuttle. A standard commercial, television or
Speaker 3: internet satellite was built to be launched once and never
Speaker 3: tensed again.
Speaker 2: So they didn't build in a way to grab them exactly.
Speaker 3: They do not have docking ports. There's no standard USB
Speaker 3: slot to just click a new engine into.
Speaker 2: So they are essentially trying to dock with a completely smooth,
Speaker 2: uncooperative metal.
Speaker 3: Box, a metal box covered in incredibly fragile, highly expensive
Speaker 3: solar panels and delicate communication antennas. There are no designated
Speaker 3: attachment points, you know, no laser guided docking.
Speaker 2: Rings, so you can't just bump into it.
Speaker 3: No, you absolutely can not just bump a washing machine
Speaker 3: sized jetpack into a satellite and hope it miraculously sticks.
Speaker 3: If the jetpack tries to dock itself, it risks smashing
Speaker 3: into a solar array and instantly creating millions of dollars
Speaker 3: of space debris.
Speaker 2: Which means you need the tactile, manual intervention of the MRV.
Speaker 3: Right, you need a highly sophisticated intermediary. You need those
Speaker 3: ten foot robotic arms to carefully approach the dying satellite,
Speaker 3: reach out and manually grapple the only solid piece of
Speaker 3: structure available.
Speaker 2: Which is what what can they even grab onto?
Speaker 3: Usually it's the original dead rocket nozzle of the old
Speaker 3: satellite's main engine. Wow, Okay, the MRV has to grab
Speaker 3: that dead nozzle, stabilize the entire massive structure, and forcibly
Speaker 3: marry the new jetpack to the old satellite. It requires
Speaker 3: physical leverage, precise alignment, and incredibly delicate touch.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the physics of that for
Speaker 2: a second, because think about the last time you tried
Speaker 2: to delicately parallel park your car on a tight street.
Speaker 3: It's stressful enough on Earth right.
Speaker 2: Now, imagine trying to do that, but the core you
Speaker 2: are trying to park next to is moving at thousands
Speaker 2: of miles an hour, and neither of you have breaks. Yes,
Speaker 2: And on top of that, you were dealing with Newton's
Speaker 2: third law. In a vacuum, every action has an equal
Speaker 2: and opposite reaction. So if the MRV reaches out with
Speaker 2: the mechanical arm and pushes the new jetpack into the
Speaker 2: old satellite to lock it in place, doesn't the act
Speaker 2: of pushing just propel the MRV backward.
Speaker 3: It absolutely does this. This is why orbital robotics is
Speaker 3: so astonishingly difficult. If you imagine standing on a frictionless
Speaker 3: sheet of ice while wearing ice skates, right, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: and someone hands you a bowling ball and you try
Speaker 3: to shove that bowling ball into a very specific slot.
Speaker 2: On the wall, you're going to slide backward.
Speaker 3: The moment you push the ball forward, your skate slide backward.
Speaker 3: The MRV has to constantly counteract its own mechanical forces.
Speaker 3: As the ten foot arm pushes the jetpack forward into
Speaker 3: the dead engine nozzle of the target satellite. The mrv's
Speaker 3: own tiny attitude control thrusters have to fire in the
Speaker 3: exact opposite direction just to cancel up the push, yes
Speaker 3: with a precise amount of counterforce to keep the minivan stationary.
Speaker 3: If they miscalculate the thrust, they either bounce off the
Speaker 3: target or they smash straight through it. It is an
Speaker 3: intricate ballet of force and counterforce.
Speaker 2: And the old satellite is essentially just a five thousand
Speaker 2: pound brick at this point. Basically, yeah, it cannot stabilize itself.
Speaker 2: It can't adjust its attitude to help the MRV catch it.
Speaker 2: It is a completely passive target. So the MRV has
Speaker 2: to do one hundred percent of the heavy lifting to
Speaker 2: make the connection safe, which.
Speaker 3: Is exactly why having a specialized, reusable robotic vehicle is
Speaker 3: the only way to perform this operation safely. And this
Speaker 3: is a big but the mechanical nightmare of catching that
Speaker 3: frictionless bowling ball is really only half the battle.
Speaker 2: The other half is the commute, right because the location
Speaker 2: where this high stakes intervention is taking place completely up
Speaker 2: ends how we normally think about space travel timelines. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 2: we are not talking about something flying just above the
Speaker 2: atmosphere where the space station lives. The MRV and these
Speaker 2: jetpacks are heading to geosynchronous.
Speaker 3: Orbit geosynchronous orbit or GEO. This is the absolute prime
Speaker 3: real estate of the global space economy. We are talking
Speaker 3: about a very specific, highly contested ring around the Earth's equator,
Speaker 3: situated a staggering twenty two thousand, three hundred miles away.
Speaker 2: Which is just a massive distance.
Speaker 3: It's huge in kilometers. It's roughly thirty six thousand kilometers
Speaker 3: straight up. Just to give you some perspective, the International
Speaker 3: Space Station orbits at about two hundred and fifty miles above.
Speaker 2: US, So two hundred and fifty miles versus twenty two
Speaker 2: thousand miles right.
Speaker 3: The MRV is going nearly one hundred times further out
Speaker 3: into the defoid.
Speaker 2: And if you're wondering why anyone would bother parking a
Speaker 2: satellite twenty two thousand miles away when we have perfectly
Speaker 2: good orbits right next door, it all comes down to
Speaker 2: the physics of angular velocity. Why is that specific altitude
Speaker 2: so unbelievably valuable?
Speaker 3: It is entirely about matching the speed of the Earth's rotation.
Speaker 3: The closer a satellite is to the Earth, the faster
Speaker 3: it has to travel to avoid falling back into the
Speaker 3: atmosphere due to gravity.
Speaker 2: Because gravity is pulling harder when you're closer.
Speaker 3: Exactly so, the Space station orbits the Earth completely once
Speaker 3: every ninety minutes. It is constantly rising and setting, But
Speaker 3: as you move further away from the Earth, gravity's pull weakens,
Speaker 3: meaning a satellite doesn't have to travel as fast to
Speaker 3: stay in orbit.
Speaker 2: So it's orbital period. The time it takes to go
Speaker 2: around the Earth once just gets longer and longer the
Speaker 2: higher you go.
Speaker 3: Precisely, and in nineteen twenty eight, an engineer name Hermie
Speaker 3: and Potochnick calculated, and later Arthur C. Clark popularized a
Speaker 3: very specific mathematical sweet spot.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's the sweet spot?
Speaker 3: If you push a satellite out to exactly twenty two
Speaker 3: three hundred miles above the equator, the time it takes
Speaker 3: for that satellite to complete one orbit around the Earth
Speaker 3: is exactly twenty three hours, fifty six minutes and four seconds.
Speaker 2: Which perfectly matches the time it takes for the Earth
Speaker 2: to complete one rotation on its axis exactly so.
Speaker 3: To an observer standing on the ground, a satellite in
Speaker 3: geosynchronous orbit appears completely motionless in the sky.
Speaker 2: That's wild. It just hangs there.
Speaker 3: It stays locked over the exact same patch of the
Speaker 3: planet twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 2: And this is the entire foundation of modern global communication.
Speaker 2: If you are a satellite television provider or a company
Speaker 2: running secure financial data across an ocean, you need your
Speaker 2: customers to be able to bolt a dish to their roof,
Speaker 2: point it at one specific unmoving spot in the sky,
Speaker 2: never have to touch it.
Speaker 3: Again, because if it moved, it would be a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If the satellite was in a lower orbit, it would
Speaker 2: zoom across the sky like a shooting star. You would
Speaker 2: need a dish with complex motors tracking it constantly, and
Speaker 2: you'd lose the signal every single time the satellite dipped
Speaker 2: below the horizon.
Speaker 3: But in GEO, you get continuous, uninterrupted coverage over an
Speaker 3: entire continent. That is why hundreds of our most critical,
Speaker 3: most expensive communication satellites are clustered out in that one
Speaker 3: specific ring.
Speaker 2: It's basically a multi billion dollar orbital parking lot.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: But getting to that parking lot takes a shocking amount
Speaker 2: of time. I mean, this launch we are talking about
Speaker 2: happened in July twenty twenty six, the Falcon nine drop
Speaker 2: them off in space. But the first actual satellite rescue,
Speaker 2: the first time those robotic arms grab a jetpack and
Speaker 2: plug it into a dying satellite, won't happen until mid
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven. It is going to take a full
Speaker 2: year for the MRV and the jetpacks just to get
Speaker 2: into position a.
Speaker 3: Full year of immense patients. And this brings us back
Speaker 3: to those xenon gas thrusters mentioned earlier. The physics of
Speaker 3: electric propulsion dictate a completely different timeline than we are
Speaker 3: used to seeing in space exploration.
Speaker 2: Because with a chemical rocket, a trip to the Moon,
Speaker 2: which is ten times further away than GEO, only takes
Speaker 2: three days. So why does it take a year to
Speaker 2: go a fraction of the distance.
Speaker 3: It comes down to a concept called the tyranny of
Speaker 3: the rocket equation and the tradeoff between thrust and specific impulse.
Speaker 3: Chemical rockets give you a massive, instantaneous burst of acceleration.
Speaker 2: They kick you out fast.
Speaker 3: They can kick you out to the Moon in a
Speaker 3: matter of days. But to get that power they have
Speaker 3: to burn an astronomical amount of heavy liquid fuel. If
Speaker 3: you tried to pack enough chemical fuel into the MRV
Speaker 3: to constantly maneuver and rescue multiple satellites, the vehicle would
Speaker 3: be the size of a skyscraper and you just couldn't
Speaker 3: launch it right. No rocket on Earth could lift it
Speaker 3: off the launch.
Speaker 2: Pad, So you have to sacrifice the immediate burst of
Speaker 2: speed for long term efficiency.
Speaker 3: Exactly electric thrusters ionizing that xenon gas an incredibly high
Speaker 3: specific impulse, meaning they're vastly more efficient with their fuel,
Speaker 3: But the physical thrust they produce at any given moment
Speaker 3: is microscopic.
Speaker 2: I've heard it compared to the weight of a piece
Speaker 2: of paper resting on the palm of your hand. That
Speaker 2: is the physical amount of push the thruster gives the spacecraft.
Speaker 3: It is an incredibly gentle, almost imperceptible nudge. If you
Speaker 3: fired a hal effect thruster on Earth, it wouldn't even
Speaker 3: be able to push itself across a slick floor really
Speaker 3: that week that week, But in the vacuum of space,
Speaker 3: where there is zero air resistance, in zero friction, that
Speaker 3: tiny continuous push of a piece of paper builds up
Speaker 3: over time. Because the xenon system is so highly efficient,
Speaker 3: the MRV can fire that thruster continuously for months on end.
Speaker 2: So it's not pointing straight up and firing, it's moving
Speaker 2: in circles around the Earth, constantly firing that tiny thruster
Speaker 2: slowly spiraling outward inch by inch, mile by mile for
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days.
Speaker 3: It takes a year, yes, but it allows the spacececraft
Speaker 3: to remain incredibly light and compact. It frees up mass
Speaker 3: so the vehicle can actually carry the heavy, complex robotic
Speaker 3: arms and the multiple jetpacks.
Speaker 2: Which brings up a massive economic question for me. Okay,
Speaker 2: if you are an operator sitting in a control room
Speaker 2: on Earth and you were watching your four hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars satellite slowly run out of maneuvering fuel, and you
Speaker 2: know it takes an entire year just for the tow
Speaker 2: truck to arrive, why wait? Well, because, like, does it
Speaker 2: make more sense to just cut your losses, call the manufacturer,
Speaker 2: build a brand new satellite on Earth and launch it
Speaker 2: on a fast chemical rocket. Why undergo this year long
Speaker 2: wait for a robotic mechanic?
Speaker 3: Because the mathematics of waiting a year represent the bargain
Speaker 3: of the century for these corporations. We just a look
Speaker 3: at the difference between capital expenditure CAPEX and operating expenditure
Speaker 3: or opex.
Speaker 2: Okay, walk me through the numbers.
Speaker 3: Building a brand new communication satellite designed to survive in
Speaker 3: deep space for fifteen years is a staggering CAPEX investment.
Speaker 3: You were looking at three hundred to four hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars just to manufacture the bus the solar panels and
Speaker 3: the transponders.
Speaker 2: That's before it even leaves the ground exactly.
Speaker 3: Then you have to buy a dedicated heavy lift rocket
Speaker 3: to get it out to GEO, which is another fifty
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars, and you have to be astronomical
Speaker 3: insurance premiums just in case the rocket explodes on the pad.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, the old satellite up there is technically still
Speaker 2: perfectly fine. The antenna still transmit data perfectly, the solar
Speaker 2: panels are still generating electricity, the computers are still crunching numbers.
Speaker 2: It's a completely functional, multimillion dollar asset that just can't
Speaker 2: keep its antennas pointed at Earth because it's out of
Speaker 2: the tiny puffs of gas needed to keep it balanced.
Speaker 3: That is the tragedy of the throwaway culture. You are
Speaker 3: discarding half a billion dollars of perfectly good technology for
Speaker 3: the want of a few kilograms of propellant. Now look
Speaker 3: at the alternative. The MRV provides the rescue mission. If
Speaker 3: you are SEES based in Luxembourg or Optis based in Australia,
Speaker 3: two of the major telecommunication operators who have contracted this
Speaker 3: specific MRV mission, you're looking at a dying asset that
Speaker 3: still has enormous revenue generating potential.
Speaker 2: Because they already paid off the mortgage on the old
Speaker 2: satellite every year. It stays active as pure profit at
Speaker 2: that point exactly.
Speaker 3: And by paying a fraction of the cost of a
Speaker 3: new satellite, say thirty to fifty million dollars for this
Speaker 3: robotic Jetpac delivery, you extend the life of your asset
Speaker 3: by another five or six years.
Speaker 2: You turn a devastating write off into a prolonged revenue stream.
Speaker 3: You wait the year because the return on investment is
Speaker 3: mathematically undeniable in space. You aren't really paying for the hardware.
Speaker 3: You are paying to preserve the location and the momentum
Speaker 3: that the asset already possesses, which is the most expensive
Speaker 3: commodity in the universe.
Speaker 2: I find the business logic of that fascinating. It's the
Speaker 2: ultimate exercise in deferred gratification. You wait a year in
Speaker 2: the dark, but you save yourself a quarter of a
Speaker 2: billion dollars in capital outlay. It's just smart business, and
Speaker 2: it completely shifts the paradigm from disposable assets to a
Speaker 2: long term managed fleet.
Speaker 3: It proves that maintaining assets in space is now a
Speaker 3: long term logistical game with an entirely new supply chain.
Speaker 2: But you know the reality of space is that you
Speaker 2: don't always have a year to wait.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: While the MRV is playing the slow, patient, year long
Speaker 2: game of orbital chess out at twenty two thousand miles,
Speaker 2: there is a completely different salvage mission happening right now
Speaker 2: that is the exact opposite in every conceivable way.
Speaker 3: It's a sprint instead of a marathon.
Speaker 2: Exactly, while Northrope Grumman takes its time spiraling out to
Speaker 2: the Deep Void, another spacecraft is rushing frantically to stop
Speaker 2: a multimillion dollar asset from literally falling out of the sky.
Speaker 2: This fall right, we're talking about a high stakes emergency
Speaker 2: happening much closer to home.
Speaker 3: The contrast between the two operations really highlights the sheer
Speaker 3: breadth of this new economy. We're moving from a patient
Speaker 3: commercial upgrade in the Deep Void to an urgent scientific
Speaker 3: rescue in lower orbit. A rescue mission, and the asset
Speaker 3: in distress here isn't a corporate communication relay. It is
Speaker 3: NASA's Swift Observatory.
Speaker 2: The Swift Telescope is an incredible piece of scientific machinery.
Speaker 2: With a phenomenal legacy. It was launched way back in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, so it has been operating in
Speaker 2: the harsh environment of space for over two decades.
Speaker 3: It's at a long life.
Speaker 2: It's a nearly four hundred million dollar gamma ray observatory
Speaker 2: and its sole purpose, its entire reason for existing, is
Speaker 2: to study the absolute most violent, biggest explosions in the
Speaker 2: known universe.
Speaker 3: Gammay bursts, or GRBs are truly phenomenal astronomical events. They
Speaker 3: are the most luminous, highly energetic explosions in the universe.
Speaker 3: It's the Big Bang itself.
Speaker 2: Just massive amounts of energy.
Speaker 3: When we detect a GRB, we are usually witnessing the violent,
Speaker 3: catastrophic death of a massive star collapsing inward to form
Speaker 3: a black hole, or the cataclysmic collision of two neutron stars.
Speaker 3: The energy released in a few seconds is more than
Speaker 3: our Sun will emit over its entire ten billion yar
Speaker 3: year lifetime.
Speaker 2: That is just I mean, that's almost incomprehensible. But the
Speaker 2: challenge for astronomers is that these births are incredibly fleeting.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The universe doesn't give you a.
Speaker 3: Warning, no note at all.
Speaker 2: A patch of dark sky suddenly erupts with gamma radiation,
Speaker 2: and it might last a few minutes, or it might
Speaker 2: be over in a few milliseconds, which.
Speaker 3: Is exactly why the telescope is named Swift. It was
Speaker 3: engineered with highly advanced gyroscopes and reaction wheels. The moment
Speaker 3: its wide field monitors detect a flash of gamma rays
Speaker 3: anywhere in the deep universe, the entire spacecraft autonomously and
Speaker 3: violently fools itself to point its high resolution X ray
Speaker 3: and optical telescopes directly at the fading afterglow.
Speaker 2: It has to catch it before the light vanishes. It
Speaker 2: is essentially a cosmic first responder, and it has been
Speaker 2: fundamentally vital for high energy astrophysics for twenty years. But
Speaker 2: unlike the communication satellite sitting comfortably out in the frictionless
Speaker 2: void of geosynchronous orbit, Swift operates in low Earth orbit
Speaker 2: or LEO.
Speaker 3: Which is a very different environment.
Speaker 2: It sits about three hundred and seventy three miles or
Speaker 2: six hundred kilometers above the surface of the Earth, and
Speaker 2: that specific altitude comes with a very dangerous, constantly shifting.
Speaker 3: Hazard atmospheric drag. We commonly think of space as a
Speaker 3: total perfect vacuum the moment you cross the Carmen line
Speaker 3: at one hundred kilometers, But the reality is much messier.
Speaker 3: Even at six hundred kilometers up, you are still technically
Speaker 3: skimming through the exosphere.
Speaker 2: Which is what exactly.
Speaker 3: It's the absolute outermost wispy edges of Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 2: So there are still trace amounts of oxygen and nitrogen
Speaker 2: molecules floating around up.
Speaker 3: There, exactly. And when a spacecraft moving at seventeen thousand
Speaker 3: miles per hour collides with even these incredibly sparse microscopic molecules,
Speaker 3: it creates friction. Over time, that friction SAPs the kinetic
Speaker 3: energy of the satellite. It loses momentum.
Speaker 2: And speed equals altitude, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the brutal law of orbital mechanics is that speed
Speaker 3: equals altitude. When you lose speed, gravity starts winning the
Speaker 3: tug of war. You slowly, inexorably sink back toward the Earth.
Speaker 2: Swift has been up there dealing with this trace atmosphere
Speaker 2: for twenty years and it's been totally fine. So why
Speaker 2: is it suddenly a dire crisis right now? Why is
Speaker 2: it falling so fast? In twenty twenty six, that NASA
Speaker 2: is terrified it might burn up in the atmosphere this fall.
Speaker 3: Because the density of the atmosphere at that altitude is
Speaker 3: not constant, it is entirely dictated by the mood of
Speaker 3: the Sun.
Speaker 2: The mood of the Sun.
Speaker 3: Our Sun operates on a rough eleven year cycle of
Speaker 3: magnetic activity, shifting from a quiet solar minimum to a
Speaker 3: violently active solar maximum. We are currently in a period
Speaker 3: of intense solar maximum. The Sun is highly active, throwing
Speaker 3: off massive coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and bathing the
Speaker 3: Earth an intense extreme ultraviolet and X ray radiation.
Speaker 2: And when all that extrasolar energy hits the top of
Speaker 2: Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 3: It heats it up, and just like a hot air
Speaker 3: balloon when you heat a gas, it expands. The Earth's
Speaker 3: atmosphere physically puffs outward, expanding further into space.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the atmosphere is literally getting taller.
Speaker 3: Altitudes that used to be a near perfect vacuum during
Speaker 3: solar minimum suddenly become densely packed with air molecules. The
Speaker 3: thermosphere swells up and engulf satellites that thought they were
Speaker 3: flying in clear space.
Speaker 2: So swift is suddenly hitting a literal wall of air
Speaker 2: it wasn't designed for. The drag coefficient on its specific
Speaker 2: aerodynamic profile has just skyrocketed.
Speaker 3: NASA flight controllers realized that because of this aggressive expanding
Speaker 3: solar activity, Swift's orbit was decaying dramatically faster than their
Speaker 3: models predicted. It is sinking, and if they don't do
Speaker 3: anything without an immediate physical intervention, this four hundred million
Speaker 3: dollar telescope will inevitably hit the thicker lower parts of
Speaker 3: the atmosphere and be incinerated in a fiery re entry.
Speaker 2: Enter the rescue mission, NASA doesn't have a year to
Speaker 2: wait for an electric thruster to slowly spiral out to it.
Speaker 2: On July third, twenty twenty six, a company called Catalyst
Speaker 2: Space Technologies launch their Link satellite Helper on a desperate
Speaker 2: intercept course.
Speaker 3: A true rapid response mission.
Speaker 2: And the way they launched this rescue module is just
Speaker 2: as fascinating as the mission itself and marve you went
Speaker 2: up on a standard Falcon nine rocket, taking off vertically
Speaker 2: from a concrete launch pat with a massive explosion. The
Speaker 2: Link mission used a completely different, highly specialized approach provided
Speaker 2: by Northrop Grumman a Pegasus rocket.
Speaker 3: The Pegasus launch system is a brilliant piece of aerospace engineering.
Speaker 3: It's specifically designed for small payloads that need to get
Speaker 3: to orbit fast. Instead of launching from a stationary pad
Speaker 3: on the ground, the Pegasus rocket is carried up into
Speaker 3: the air horizontally strapped to the belly of a heavily
Speaker 3: modified commercial airliner a jet plane, a customized Lockheed L
Speaker 3: ten eleven known as the Stargazer.
Speaker 2: So they just fly a massive passenger jet up to
Speaker 2: about forty thousand feet, open the bomb bay doors, drop
Speaker 2: a fifty thousand pound rocket out from underneath it, and
Speaker 2: the rocket just ignites midair while falling.
Speaker 3: That is the exact mechanism. It's called an air launch system,
Speaker 3: and the physics behind why you would do this are
Speaker 3: incredibly sound. Rockets use the vast overwhelming majority of their
Speaker 3: fuel in the first two minutes of flight, just pushing
Speaker 3: through the absolute thickest, most dense part of the lower
Speaker 3: atmosphere and fighting stationary inertia to get off the.
Speaker 2: Pad right the air is really thick down by the ground.
Speaker 3: This period of maximum aerodynamic stress is called max Q.
Speaker 2: So it takes an immense amount of energy just to
Speaker 2: punch through the thick air at sea level.
Speaker 3: By carrying the rocket inside an airplane above forty thousand feet,
Speaker 3: you essentially skip the hardest part of the atmosphere. The
Speaker 3: airplane does the grueling work of climbing through the thick air.
Speaker 3: When the Pegasus drops, it is already above seventy five
Speaker 3: percent of the Earth's atmosphere, and it already has a
Speaker 3: starting lateral velocity of about five hundred miles per hour.
Speaker 2: From the jet, it's getting a massive headstart.
Speaker 3: The rocket requires vastly less fuel to reach orbital velocity,
Speaker 3: meaning it can be much smaller, much cheaper, and launched
Speaker 3: from almost anywhere in the world on a moment's notice
Speaker 3: for a small urgent payload, like catalysts. Link module raising
Speaker 3: to catch a falling telescope. It is the ultimate rapid
Speaker 3: deployment system.
Speaker 2: So they drop the Pegasus. The rocket screens into low
Speaker 2: Earth orbit, and the link module deploys, But the drama
Speaker 2: immediately begins because space is inherently hostile. Before Link can
Speaker 2: even begin to think about rushing over to save the
Speaker 2: swift telescope, Link itself runs into severe trouble in the void,
Speaker 2: which is terrifying when time is running out flight controllers
Speaker 2: back on Earth start seeing initial communication glitches and physical
Speaker 2: pointing problems with the hardware and order.
Speaker 3: This is a classic brutal reality of spaceflight. You can
Speaker 3: test hardware in a thermal vacuum chamber on Earth thousands
Speaker 3: of times, but the actual space environment will always throw
Speaker 3: unpredictable curve balls.
Speaker 2: It's just a totally different beast up there.
Speaker 3: The extreme temperature fluctuations, the micro vibrations of deployment, and
Speaker 3: the constant bombardment of cosmic rays causing single event upsets
Speaker 3: in the computer processors. Commercial off the shelf hardware often
Speaker 3: struggles in the first few weeks of operation.
Speaker 2: But the engineers at Catalyst managed to fix it, and
Speaker 2: the way they fixed it is a testament to modern engineering.
Speaker 2: They fixed physical pointing problems entirely remotely, just beaming up
Speaker 2: complex software patches. To correct the hardware anomalies.
Speaker 3: They had to rewrite the attitude control algorithms on the
Speaker 3: fly to compensate for sensors that were behaving erratically.
Speaker 2: Think about the ingenuity of that. It's like trying to
Speaker 2: fix a remote control car's physical steering alignment from another
Speaker 2: continent just by updating its app over WI fi. Yes,
Speaker 2: you can't touch the machine, you can't see the machine.
Speaker 2: You just have to look at lines of colemetry data
Speaker 2: and reverse engineer a software solution to force the hardware
Speaker 2: to behave.
Speaker 3: It highlights the absolute necessity of adaptability and redundancy in
Speaker 3: these salvage missions, because the software has to be robust
Speaker 3: enough to work around minor unexpected hardware failures. I mean,
Speaker 3: a rescue toad truck is useless if it breaks down
Speaker 3: on the way of the accident exactly.
Speaker 2: But here's the part of the Swift rescue that I
Speaker 2: find most compelling, the economics of the intervention. NASA is
Speaker 2: paying Catalyst thirty million dollars for this mission. The goal
Speaker 2: is for the Link module to meet up with Swift physically,
Speaker 2: latch onto it, and use its own thrusters to push
Speaker 2: the massive telescope back up to its original three hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy three mile altitude.
Speaker 3: Completely fighting against that solar drag we talked.
Speaker 2: About, right, So thirty million dollars for what is essentially
Speaker 2: a physical push. When you look at the balance sheet,
Speaker 2: is thirty million dollars a bargain to save a twenty
Speaker 2: two year old telescope that might I don't know, just
Speaker 2: fail next year.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it is an astronomical bargain. We have to look
Speaker 3: at the opportunity cost. Let's say Nassa hesitates, they don't
Speaker 3: spend the thirty million, and they let Swift burn up
Speaker 3: in the atmosphere. If the scientific community wants to replace
Speaker 3: the unique capability that Swift provides, the ability to instantly
Speaker 3: pivot and catch the highest energy explosions in the universe,
Speaker 3: you are starting entirely from scratch.
Speaker 2: You can't just buy a Gamma ray telescope off the
Speaker 2: shelf at a hardware store.
Speaker 3: You have to secure funding from Congress. You have to
Speaker 3: design a brand new observatory, procure modern radiation hardened components,
Speaker 3: test it for years, and buy a launch vehicle. You
Speaker 3: are looking at an ex spenditure of well over half
Speaker 3: a billion dollars, perhaps closer to a billion in today's
Speaker 3: inflation adjusted money. That's massive, and it would take a
Speaker 3: decade of planning and construction before it ever saw space.
Speaker 3: You would have a ten year blind spot in our
Speaker 3: observation of the universe.
Speaker 2: Will the explosions keep happening and we just miss them?
Speaker 3: Conversely, for thirty million dollars, which is essentially a rounding
Speaker 3: error in NASA's broader twenty five billion dollar annual budget.
Speaker 3: You secure potentially five to ten more years of high
Speaker 3: quality data from an asset that is already up there,
Speaker 3: already calibrated and proven to work.
Speaker 2: So even if it is old, it's worth it.
Speaker 3: Smift is old, yes, but its mirrors and detectors are
Speaker 3: still incredibly sharp. It is still unlocking the fundamental physics
Speaker 3: of the universe. Spending thirty million to save a four
Speaker 3: hundred million dollar asset is the ultimate orbital ROI.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 3: It showcases the immediate, undeniable value of this new industry.
Speaker 3: We no longer have to passively mourn our scientific instruments
Speaker 3: when their orbits decay. We can actively triage and rescue them.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've explored this patient, highly lucrative commercial repair
Speaker 2: job taking place twenty two thousand miles away with the MRV,
Speaker 2: and we've looked at this frantic, high stake scientific rescue
Speaker 2: mission just three hundred miles above our heads with the
Speaker 2: link saving Swift.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I think this is the moment where we need to
Speaker 2: step back and look at the macro picture, because what
Speaker 2: we are really talking about here isn't just a couple
Speaker 2: of isolated cool science experiments. We are watching the transition
Speaker 2: from a throwaway culture to a fully managed orbital ecosystem.
Speaker 3: It's a great way to put it.
Speaker 2: This is the birth of permanent active space infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Framing it as an ecosystem is exactly right. And it's
Speaker 3: important to recognize that this capability didn't just manifest out
Speaker 3: of thin air in July twenty twenty six. This has
Speaker 3: been a steady, incredibly difficult technological evolution.
Speaker 2: People who have been working on this for a while.
Speaker 3: If we look at the historical context, Northrop Grumman has
Speaker 3: actually been the primary pioneer pushing this specific envelope for
Speaker 3: several years now.
Speaker 2: They didn't just start with the MRV, right, They had
Speaker 2: two massive proof of concept missions before this, back in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen and again in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yes, they launched a pair of groundbreaking spacecraft called the
Speaker 3: Mission Extension Vehicles MeV one and MeV two, and those
Speaker 3: missions successfully proved that the core physics and mechanics of
Speaker 3: the concept worked.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they did this before they.
Speaker 3: Flew out to faltering out of gas communication satellites in
Speaker 3: geosynchronous orbit. Matched their rotations perfectly and successfully latched onto
Speaker 3: the dead engine nozzles.
Speaker 2: But there is a crucial fundamental difference between what they
Speaker 2: achieved in twenty nineteen and what they are doing right
Speaker 2: now with the new MRV. Isn't there The architecture of
Speaker 2: the mission has changed.
Speaker 3: A very significant evolution in efficiency and scalability. In those
Speaker 3: earlier twenty nineteen and twenty twenty missions, the entire servicing spacecraft,
Speaker 3: the tow truck itself latched onto the dying satellite and
Speaker 3: simply never let go.
Speaker 2: Oh, it just stayed there.
Speaker 3: The tow truck essentially acted as parasitic engine. It fired
Speaker 3: its own thrusters to keep the old satellite in place,
Speaker 3: providing the extra years of life. But it meant that
Speaker 3: highly expensive robotic vehicle was now permanently occupied. It could
Speaker 3: only ever save one single satellite.
Speaker 2: Ah. So that is why the MRV bringing along three
Speaker 2: separate washing machine jet packs is such a massive evolutionary
Speaker 2: leap forward. The MRV is no longer a parasite. It
Speaker 2: is a reusable tool.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: It flies up, grabs a jet pack, plugs it into
Speaker 2: the dying satellite, and then physically detaches and leaves it
Speaker 2: is not permanently stuck to the first patient it treats.
Speaker 3: It exponentially scales the operation. The MRV is a true
Speaker 3: robotic mechanic, vastly more resourceful and economically viable than the
Speaker 3: earlier MeTV generations. It can service multiple clients across the orbital.
Speaker 2: Arc, which changes everything.
Speaker 3: And the vision Northrop Grumman has for the future of
Speaker 3: these robotic arms goes far beyond just delivering new.
Speaker 2: Gas tanks, right, because if you have a robot capable
Speaker 2: of delicately plugging in a battery, it stands to reason
Speaker 2: that same robot could perform much more invasive procedures. Are
Speaker 2: we looking at a future where this minivan just stays
Speaker 2: up there as a permanent roaming mechanic.
Speaker 3: The engineering roadmap absolutely includes highly complex physical repairs of
Speaker 3: live functioning satellites in orbit. The ten foot arms aren't
Speaker 3: just for pushing jetpacks. Imagine a scenario where a military
Speaker 3: or commercial satellite deploys in orbit, but one of its
Speaker 3: massive solar panels gets stuck and doesn't unfurl properly.
Speaker 2: Which happens mechanisms jam in the cold of space all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: All the time. Instead of writing off a half billion
Speaker 3: dollar machine. Because a hinge froze, you send up an
Speaker 3: advanced robotic vehicle. It flies over matches the spin, delicately
Speaker 3: grapples the jammed panel with tactile force feedback and physically
Speaker 3: pulls it.
Speaker 2: Open, just pry it open.
Speaker 3: They're also developing the capability to relocate live satellites, entirely
Speaker 3: moving massive assets from one orbital slot over Europe to
Speaker 3: a new slot over Asia without forcing the satellite to
Speaker 3: burn its own precious onboard maneuvering fuel.
Speaker 2: That level of physical manipulation is incredible, But there is
Speaker 2: a darker, much more urgent necessity to this technology, isn't there.
Speaker 2: The ability to grapple things in space isn't just about
Speaker 2: fixing the shiny, functioning, revenue generating satellites.
Speaker 3: No, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's about what we are going to do with the
Speaker 2: dead ones, Because right now, highly trafficked orbits are starting
Speaker 2: to look like a hazardous junk yard.
Speaker 3: The space debris problem is arguably the most critical application
Speaker 3: of this technology. In the long term. Northrop Grumman is
Speaker 3: actively planning for these robotic vehicles to not just deliver
Speaker 3: jet packs, but to latch onto completely dead unresponsive satellites
Speaker 3: and physically drag them out of highly trafficked orbits, just.
Speaker 2: Tow them away, tossing them into designated graveyard orbits. And
Speaker 2: they aren't developing this capability in a vacuum. They are
Speaker 2: collaborating closely with major defense and research organizations, specifically the
Speaker 2: US Naval Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Project's
Speaker 2: Agency DARPA.
Speaker 3: Where DARPA gets involved in a project, you know, the
Speaker 3: stakes are incredibly high and it usually involves national security.
Speaker 3: Why is the physical removal of dead satellite so critical
Speaker 3: that the highest levels of the defense sector are stepping
Speaker 3: in to collaborate on the grappling technology.
Speaker 2: It all comes down to a terrifying physical scenario first
Speaker 2: proposed by an astrophysicist named Donald Kessler in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: known as the Kessler syndrome.
Speaker 3: Okay, what is that?
Speaker 2: I want you to imagine an orbit like a busy
Speaker 2: terrestrial highway, But on this orbital highway, the cars are
Speaker 2: traveling at seventeen thousand miles per hour and none of
Speaker 2: them have breaks.
Speaker 3: That's a terrifying thought. Now, imagine a massive three ton
Speaker 3: communication satellite dies its batteries fail, it loses all power.
Speaker 3: It can't be steered by ground control, and it can't
Speaker 3: actively dodge out of the way of incoming traffic. It
Speaker 3: just becomes a multi ton dead weight hurdling blindly through
Speaker 3: the absolute most crowded lanes of orbital traffic.
Speaker 2: The kinetic energy involved in collisions at those speeds is
Speaker 2: almost impossus to comprehend. I know that a microscopic fleck
Speaker 2: of paint moving at seventeen thousand miles per hour carries
Speaker 2: enough kinetic energy to crack a heavily shielded window on
Speaker 2: the space station. I can't even fathom what a three
Speaker 2: ton dead satellite would do if it hits something.
Speaker 3: The physics of hypervelocity impacts are catastrophic. The kinetic energy
Speaker 3: is so massive that the metal doesn't just crumple. It
Speaker 3: undergoes a phase transition.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: If that dead satellite collides with another satellite, it doesn't
Speaker 3: just crash like a car. The materials physically vaporize and shatter.
Speaker 3: It instantaneously creates thousands of pieces of high speed shrapnel.
Speaker 2: And then that shrapnel keeps moving at seventeen thousand miles
Speaker 2: an hour.
Speaker 3: Exactly those thousands of pieces spread out and act like
Speaker 3: cosmic duct shot, hitting other satellites in the same orbital plane,
Speaker 3: which then shatter and create millions of more pieces of.
Speaker 2: Shrapnels the spirals out of control.
Speaker 3: It triggers a runaway, cascading chain reaction of destruction. Eventually,
Speaker 3: if left unchecked, that entire orbital ban becomes a localized
Speaker 3: hypervelocity minefield. It becomes completely unusable for any future satellites,
Speaker 3: whether they are commercial Internet constellations or highly classified military
Speaker 3: reconnaissance platforms.
Speaker 2: So we're essentially watching the creation of an orbital sanitation
Speaker 2: department and an armed highway patrol all rolled into one
Speaker 2: robotic minivan.
Speaker 3: Clearing these highly trafficked orbits isn't just an exercise in
Speaker 3: keeping the cosmos piety. It is an absolute existential requirement
Speaker 3: for the future of space exploration and global.
Speaker 2: Communications because we rely on them so much.
Speaker 3: Modern civilization relies heavily on these orbital pathways for everything
Speaker 3: GPS navigation, for global shipping, precision agriculture, weather forecasting, synchronized
Speaker 3: financial transactions, and military command control. If an orbit becomes
Speaker 3: a Kessler Syndrome graveyard, we lose all those capabilities entirely.
Speaker 3: These robotic salvage missions are the only way to ensure
Speaker 3: that the orbital highways remain safe, functional, and clear of
Speaker 3: hazardous debris. We are moving from a passive observation of
Speaker 3: space to active, aggressive traffic management.
Speaker 2: It is genuinely on inspiring to pause and think about
Speaker 2: what is happening above our heads right this very second.
Speaker 2: We started this hour talking about the absurdity of abandoning
Speaker 2: a luxury car on the highway because it ran out
Speaker 2: of gas, and now we are looking at a reality
Speaker 2: where a ten foot roboted arm is wrestling a washing
Speaker 2: machine sized jetpack calculating Newton's third law twenty two thousand
Speaker 2: miles away in the freezing void, just to save a
Speaker 2: corporate asset and shift a balance sheet. It's incredible, and
Speaker 2: at the exact same time, there is a desperate, thirty
Speaker 2: million dollar push to physically lift a sinking gammory telescope
Speaker 2: away from an expanding atmosphere just so humanity can keep
Speaker 2: watching the biggest explosions in the universe. We have truly
Speaker 2: undeniably entered the era of the orbital mechanic.
Speaker 3: We have crossed a profound threshold in aerospace engineering. The
Speaker 3: technology to touch physically manipulate and actively alter the trajectory
Speaker 3: of uncooperative objects in space is now an operational reality.
Speaker 3: It completely changes the risk calculus of every mission moving forward.
Speaker 2: And as we wrap this up, that new reality leaves
Speaker 2: me with a completely different, slightly more provocative angle to ponder.
Speaker 2: Because as this technology inevitably advances, as the MRV gets smarter,
Speaker 2: as those ten foot arms get stronger, and as autonomous
Speaker 2: navigation gets sharper, the ability to latch, onto, move, or
Speaker 2: alter the course of any satellite in orbit becomes a
Speaker 2: tangible reality. This does We've spent this time talking about
Speaker 2: companies saving their own satellites or NASA saving their own telescopes.
Speaker 2: But if a private corporation or an adversarial government possesses
Speaker 2: a fleet of highly capable, minivan sized robots that can
Speaker 2: just fly up, a grab, and relocate an object in space,
Speaker 2: how long until we face intense geopolitical disputes over who
Speaker 2: actually has the right to move, salvage, or claim the
Speaker 2: abandoned technology floating above our world.
Speaker 3: That is a massive legal gray area.
Speaker 2: If a multimillion dollar satellite has been dead and unresponsive
Speaker 2: for ten years, does the first robot to grab it
Speaker 2: get to claim salvage rights like a shipwreck in international waters.
Speaker 2: Does maritime salvage law apply in the deep void. It's
Speaker 2: something to deeply consider the next time you look up
Speaker 2: at the night sky and see a satellite tracking across
Speaker 2: the stars