spacetoday.net: Northrop Grumman selected for satellite servicing program

Posted: Sat, Mar 7, 2020, 10:37 AM ET (1537 GMT)
DARPA announced Wednesday it has selected Northrop Grumman to work on a satellite servicing program. Under the agreement, DARPA will provide the robotics payload for a Northrop Grumman Mission Robotic Vehicle that will be used to service satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit for DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program. DARPA originally selected Maxar as its commercial partner for RSGS in 2017, but Maxar exited the program last year for financial reasons. The selection comes on the heels of Northrop's successful demonstration of its Mission Extension Vehicle, which docked with an Intelsat satellite last week in an effort to keep that spacecraft in operation for an additional five years.