China has become one of the few countries to successfully refuel satellites in space.
Launched aboard the Long March-7 carrier on Saturday, the country’s Tianyuan-1 system has been able to refuel one of the satellites in orbit.
China’s first in-space satellite refuelling system, Tianyuan-1 has been developed by National University of Defense Technology, reported Xinhuanet.com
Although officials have not detailed the process, they said that it is not different from refuelling airplanes mid-air, reported Ubergizmo.
Refuelling enables satellites to remain in orbit for longer period of time; otherwise, making other adjustments would be expensive and impractical.
By refuelling satellites, countries can save substantial amount of money as they can reduce the number of vehicles required to deploy to maintain the presence of their satellites in space.
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By GlobalDataThe process will also decrease the growing number of dead satellites and debris in the orbit.
The final aim is to completely avoid fuel, but attempts such as these indicate an important development in the aerospace industry.
