Apparently, they would send one of their birds with a "parasite" module.
What if?? Say the James Webb telescope has a problem after it's deployment, could this servicing vehicle observe the exterior, aid in a plan to repair, if it is equipped with an arm, maybe it could do a repair. Didn't one of Lockheed's satellites AEHF kick motors fail a couple years ago and had to rely on its Hall effect thruster to raise the apogee.
Based on the Orbital legacy Geostar Satellite Platform and our Cygnus Autonomous Rendezvous technology, together with the ATK heritage Hubble space telescope servicing devices and other prior work. The first of these new geosynchronous orbit servicing vehicles if the project proceeds as expected will commence operations following launch in early 2019.Details on this project including anchor customer agreements and the technical capabilities of our servicing systems will be announced later this year.
At present, there is not and we do not anticipate government contribution to the space initiative. That is a new commercial service that we are preparing to offer and while over the long-term, government satellites may benefit from it and make use of it, we don't expect government funding during the development phase of that project.
Dulles, Virginia and Luxembourg 12 April 2016 – Orbital ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, today announced that Intelsat, S.A. (NYSE: I), operator of the world’s first Globalized Network, has signed a contract to become the first customer for Orbital ATK’s new satellite life extension service. [...] Under the agreement, Orbital ATK will manufacture, test and launch the first Commercial Servicing Vehicle (CSV), the Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1), which incorporates flight-proven technologies the company has used in its commercial satellite and space logistics businesses. After successfully completing a series of in-orbit tests, the MEV-1 will begin its mission extension service for Intelsat in 2019.
I wonder if the MEV is small/light enough for launch on a Pegasus?EDIT: At 2,000kg it looks like they'd have to go to a third party launcher.
As another example in our Space Systems group, we announced in April, a five-year contract with Intelsat, the first customer for our in-space commercial satellite servicing system. This program is a great example of the new revenue opportunities created by our merger as we combine the Orbital legacy GEOStar satellite platform and Cygnus Autonomous Rendezvous technology with ATK Heritage Hubble telescope servicing devices and other prior work. If things proceed as planned, the first of an eventual fleet of up to five of these geosynchronous orbit servicing vehicles will commence operations following launch in early 2019, with four more such vehicles to follow in 2020 and 2021.