Grave-robbing robot could revive dead satellites

  Satellites at the end of their life, often performed in a "graveyard" orbit to make room for replacements. DARPA has now proposed a desecration robot that can stitch together parts of dead satellites to these new, avoiding the enormous costs associated with the launch of components in space.

DARPA's Phoenix program aims to re-purpose ground robotic systems, such as those used by surgeons to operate on patients remotely, so that a person on earth to satellites to separate and reuse expensive components such as antennas.

The program will also develop a new type of nano-satellite hitch a ride aboard a normal satellite launcher and throws it right when it reaches orbit. The grave-robber robot can scoop up these nano and add them to an old antenna on a new low-cost communication platform to create.

Plans are in place for a first test mission in 2015 with robotic harvesting components in an existing satellite retired and reconfigure them into a new purpose. But the grave-robber will not be able to go after an old satellite - the Outer Space Treaty means that any object sent into space will remain property of the country, to launch, although it was dumped in a graveyard orbit.