On February 25, 2020, the Northrop Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle 1, or MEV-1, docked with the Intel SAT

901 communications satellite.

This was an important milestone moment in the history of space, as it was the first time

two commercial satellites have ever docked with each other in orbit, a maneuver that may be important

in several different ways in the coming decade. Future potential use cases in mind, the MEV-1

is actually part of a larger program being pursued by Northrop Grumman. The intention is to build

an in-orbit service industry capable of, in this case, docking with older

satellites that are running low on fuel, and providing them with the fuel they require

to become operable once more, at least for a time.

The aforementioned Intel Sat 901 is 19 years old, and it recently had to be moved to a much higher orbit, what's often called

a graveyard orbit, because it was running critically low on fuel and would not have been able to move

itself out of the way if a collision with another satellite was imminent. The higher, that is

further from Earth, graveyard orbit, is meant to prevent such collisions,

as it's a larger area and more sparsely populated, as it's not as useful for most satellite-related

purposes.

Being able to dodge and weave in this way is fairly vital for still-operable satellites,

as it's getting somewhat cluttered up there in popular orbits,

and although space is big, these satellites have to semi-regularly use their thrusters to prevent

collisions with their neighbors and with random bits of space junk, natural pieces of rock,

but also an abundance of paint flakes, pieces of metal, and other space age detritus

that's broken off of other satellites, gone missing from the International Space Station,

or otherwise ended up orbiting Earth, untethered from any larger object.

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