Space Force Wants To Quickly Acquire On-Orbit Refueling Services

COLORADO SPRINGS—The Pentagon has tasked the U.S. Space Force to develop on-orbit servicing quickly, looking to adopt technologies being offered by dozens of companies that have expressed interest ahead of upcoming demonstrations.

The Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) was tasked by Defense Department and Joint Staff leadership to conduct an accelerated analysis of alternatives (AOA) for on-orbit servicing that is “heavily biased” toward commercial offerings instead of the standard Pentagon development cycle, says Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, SSC’s program executive officer for assured access to space.

SSC hosted a reverse Industry Day last fall, which brought in “an alarming number of companies” interested in providing these services, Purdy says. The command followed up at a conference in February to refine the requirements for a mission area that had not been done before in a large sense.

“It is amazing how many companies are into on-orbit servicing, it’s actually hard to keep track,” Purdy told reporters April 18 at the Space Symposium here.

The AOA work will help the Space Force understand the companies involved, their timelines, their plans and their “philosophies” toward working with the military, Purdy says.

For on-orbit refueling, there are a large number of companies looking to launch in the 2025 timeframe. The Space Force plans its own demonstration in 2025 to work on standards for refueling. The service in July 2022 awarded Orion Space Solutions a $44.5 million contract for the mission, known as Tetra-5.

“Refueling is a particularly interesting subject because it’s great that you have a refueling standard, now what?” Purdy says. “Nothing up there has refueling plugs.”

NASA is planning a test that Purdy says is particularly interesting in this area. The civil test will have a refueling satellite go up to another to stick a probe into its tank and refuel it while trying to “not blow it up,” he says. This mission, OSAM-1, is set for launch in 2025.

“It’s actually fascinating, and I’m very, very interested to see how that works,” he says. “So [here is] a fascinating tech project: the ability to . . . go up and retroactively refuel all the satellites out there, then it’s about building the standard and making sure everything that we launch in the future has those plugs.”

The Space Force in October 2022 awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to install hydrazine refueling valves on satellites. The company says it is developing this interface with the Space Force and hopes it will become the standard for commercial satellites as well.

U.S. Space Command also is planning for a demonstration in 2026 with the goal of operationalizing it by 2030. Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of Space Operations Command, said April 19 it is looking forward to bringing on on-orbit refueling and that “there’s work to do” to set requirements and plan for military operations that will take advantage of the capability.