These space vehicles will be able to carry out a wide range of operations in orbit, including controlled reentry of space debris, robotic manipulation, extending a satellite's service life, in-orbit refueling, inspection, etc.
On-Orbit servicing space vehicles represent a real paradigm shift in space: upcoming systems will no longer be “abandoned to their fate” once in orbit, but can evolve over their lifetime. Thales Alenia Space is one of the leading pioneers in the trend towards On-Orbit Servicing, which signals the advent of a new approach to space access. When humanity considers the possibility of building lunar bases sometime in the future, On-Orbit Servicing technologies will underpin the solutions developed to transport and assemble the constituent elements.
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