A firm has come up with a plan for a satellite that could reboost and refuel commercial satellites that are otherwise functioning just fine.
Spacecraft repair robots could give satellites longer lives
"ViviSat's Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) is being designed to dock to satellites in orbit, and then use its own thrusters to provide propulsion and attitude control. Among other functions, the spacecraft will be able to adjust an older satellite's orbit, rescue fully fueled satellites that may have launched into the wrong location, or move a satellite into a different orbit for a completely new purpose."
Checking that first link, I think I wrote about this before last year sometime. It's mainly for the geostationary orbit market.
Next step: robotic manipulators that can actually fix things. That would need really great communications technology, though. Considering what we've done with the Internet, that doesn't seem too high a hurdle.)
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