Mission Extension Vehicle

The Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV)^[1] is a spacecraft that extends the functional lifetime of another spacecraft through on-orbit satellite servicing. They are 2010s-design small-scale in-space satellite-refueling spacecraft first launched in 2019. The MEV spacecraft grew out of a concept proposed in 2011 by ViviSat, a 50/50 joint venture of aerospace firms US Space and Alliant Techsystems (ATK). The joint venture was created in 2010 for the purpose of designing, producing and operating the MEV program.^[2]

Since the original conception of the MEV program by the ViviSat company, the Vivisat venture was shut down for a time, and the company was dissolved by Orbital ATK in April 2016.^[3] The MEV program continued on as a solo-project of Orbital ATK, which was subsequently purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2018. The MEV program continued under Northrop Grumman^[3] and in 2019, launched MEV-1 to dock and reposition Intelsat 901, an objective reached in April 2020. Servicing an on-orbit satellite in this way was a space industry first for a telerobotically operated spacecraft, as satellite servicing had previously been accomplished only with on-orbit human assistance in the several missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope.^[4]