NASA | RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers the Goods

Fill'er up! That's the promise of robotic refueling on orbit: aging satellites can get a new lease on life from a robotic machine making a service call. Or, at least, the dream of such a system got dramatically closer after NASA's robotic mission success. NASA had an idea, and in a series of extraordinary tests, decided to demonstrate that technologies for servicing satellites in space had evolved to levels of material value. Extending the lifespans of satellites already at work hundreds, even thousands of miles above the Earth, could soon be a reality. In a six-day test at the International Space Station called the Robotic Refueling Mission, they tried out tools and techniques for repairing and refueling satellites without a single astronaut in sight. It's a story with historical roots dating back to the 1980's, and with RRM's twenty-first century on-orbit success, it shines a light on bold imaginings for a space-faring future that suddenly doesn't seem so far ahead. In this documentary we look at the lifecycle of this extraordinary initiative.