Orbital ATK Challenges SSL/DARPA Contract for Satellite Servicing Technology

February 10, 2017 |Satellite

Space Systems Loral got a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to develop the capability to service and maintain geosynchronous orbit satellites -- a contract Orbital ATK is suing to block. SSL said in a news release Thursday that DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program will be the foundation of a new business line in repairing, relocating and refueling in-orbit assets. SSL said it will provide a spacecraft to carry the robotic servicing payload and take care of integration of the two, and DARPA will provide robotics technology and the launch. SSL also said it's in talks "with several key customers" about the planned commercial venture and it will market the offering to both commercial and government satellite operators. Orbital ATK said it plans its first satellite life extension project in 2019 for Intelsat (see [Ref:1604120044]). In its suit (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Orbital ATK and its Space Logistics subsidiary called the DARPA award to SSL a "waste [of] hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars" for satellite servicing technology that NASA and the private sector are developing. The contract violates U.S. space policy instituted in a 2010 Obama administration executive order mandating government space systems be developed only when there's no suitable commercial alternative and precluding space activities that could compete with U.S. commercial space activities, Orbital ATK said, asking for declaratory relief and an injunction. DARPA said RSGS is aimed at technologies important to national security and not expected to be commercially available in the near term, such as ultra-close inspection, mechanical anomaly repair, and installation of technical packages satellite exteriors -- "all of which require highly dexterous robotic arms" like those already created by DARPA. SSL didn't comment about the litigation. Also named as a defendant is DARPA acting Director Steven Walker.