ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF IN-ORBIT SERVICING ACTIVITIES

Since the beginning of space exploration, dating back to the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, a new sector called Space Economy has simultaneously developed. Among the many activities that are growing in this field, In-Orbit Servicing is emerging. This one includes a set of operations on satellites already in orbit, such as: Life Extension, Relocation, De-Orbiting, Robotics, Space Situational Awareness, Active Debris Removal and Last Mile Delivery. These are becoming more and more interesting, especially because the number of satellites already in orbit, space debris and collisions is increasing dramatically: it is therefore convenient to think about extending the life of satellites already in orbit, especially for the most distant orbits hosting larger satellites. In recent years many hypotheses have been made on the development prospects of these activities. It is interesting to notice that there is disagreement (by millions or even billions of dollars) between one source and another. Moreover, it comes out that the missions are postponed every year. The only Life Extension missions that have been completed up to now concern the Intelsat satellites with MEV-1 servicer in 2018 and MEV-2 servicer in 2021. The analyses taken into consideration in this thesis are aimed at analyzing the economic convenience between the life extension of satellites of various sizes in different orbits and their replacement with more performing satellites. Five Use Cases are then developed by exploiting different types of implementations and using data obtained from public sources: it will be highlighted how In-Orbit Servicing activities can be convenient depending on the type of satellite and the type of orbit. For each existing satellite analyzed, different in each Use Case, a mock-servicer simulating Life Extension service is assumed. Construction, launch, insurance, operating, depreciation, taxation and other costs are considered. The results show that it is not very convenient to extend the life of a small satellite in a closer orbit, while this solution is interesting in case of a large-mass satellite in more distant orbits.