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I know that the space shuttle was originally designed with the capability to retrieve satellites from space, but I'm wondering if in the commercial market right now if there are services that allow the retrieval?

I've seen companies that do space junk clean up etc, but wondering if when companies or governments use SpaceX or one of the other launch companies to launch a satellite, do they also have the ability to go and get that satellite too?

logos_164
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  • slightly related: Have there been individual satellites that have been deployed and recovered more than twice? – uhoh Oct 31 '19 at 07:10
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    If it was commercially viable someone would be doing it already, the cost of retrieval refurbishing and relaunching isn't more attractive than simply building a new one with the latest technology – GdD Oct 31 '19 at 08:44
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    It seems that the ability to retrieve a satellite from orbit to surface was not missed very often during the last decades. May be the cost to retrieve, repair, recheck and relaunch was much higher than to build and launch a new replacement satellite. – Uwe Oct 31 '19 at 11:32
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    Why would you retrieve a satellite from orbit? – Philipp Oct 31 '19 at 12:31
  • @GdD not necessarily. There’s plenty of instances in a lot of different industries where there was a market and technology for something that nobody was taking advantage of. – logos_164 Oct 31 '19 at 15:09
  • @Philipp just having the ability opens up possibilities for other applications of the satellite. Perhaps instead of letting it fall into the atmosphere and burning up, we can recover it and reuse the parts, or resell them. If it was economically viable for a spacecraft to grab it while it’s in orbit then bring it down, this could potentially provide immense value – logos_164 Oct 31 '19 at 15:11
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    @logos_164 The most expensive part of launching a satellite is usually the launch vehicle. A retrieval operation would usually be more expensive than just building a new satellite. – Philipp Oct 31 '19 at 16:03
  • @Philipp unless the launch vehicle is already up there running another mission to launch another satellite, then you wouldn’t need a relaunch you just do it in one trip – logos_164 Oct 31 '19 at 16:04
  • @Philipp the ones the shuttle retrieved were either scientific satellites that were brought back for study, or ones that had failed and were brought back for repair and relaunch. – Organic Marble Oct 31 '19 at 19:01

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Defining "retrieval" as "returning a commercial satellite to earth" then as of this moment there is no known capability to do that. (Ground-ruling out capsules like Dragon that return themselves with internal cargo).

As you mention Shuttle was designed for that but it was decades since it performed that function.

One could speculate about the X-37 and SpaceX has mentioned using their proposed vehicles in this role. But as of right now...no.

Organic Marble
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  • Yes that’s what I meant is returning it safely to earth and thank you for the detailed answer. What I’m getting from your answer is that the capability is most likely there, it’s just not provided as a service is that fairly accurate? – logos_164 Oct 31 '19 at 00:37
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    It's not impossible to do but no one can do it right now. – Organic Marble Oct 31 '19 at 01:05
  • I mean technically if the satellite were small enough, they could fly it into an airlock on the ISS and then put it in a dragon capsule... – Dragongeek Oct 31 '19 at 14:57
  • @Dragongeek I tried to rule out edge cases like that. There could conceivably be cubesats deployed from ISS and retrieved. I don't think that was the intent of the question. – Organic Marble Oct 31 '19 at 15:02
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    "[but it has been decades since it last performed that function, with only four STS launches (out of 135) having recovered five satellites in total.]" – Mazura Nov 01 '19 at 00:04
  • @Dragongeek A hydrazine fueled satellite would never flown into an airlock on the ISS. Just to avoid the risk of a hydrazine pollution of the ISS atmosphere. – Uwe Nov 02 '19 at 10:58