A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation Tuesday afternoon to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up.
It’s the second satellite-saving mission to launch this month, all part of a growing, money-saving effort to keep old spacecraft running as long as possible. Another company’s three-armed spacecraft rocketed into orbit on July 3 to boost NASA’s Swift Observatory so it doesn’t crash to Earth this fall.
