LCROSS is low on propellant:
LCROSS is now perilously close to its built-in propellant margins, and Andrews said the team will probably have to cancel some activities that are not crucial to the mission.
“Our estimates now are if we pretty much baseline the mission, meaning just accomplish the things that we have to (do) to get the job done with full mission success, we’re still in the black on propellant, but not by a lot,” Andrews told Spaceflight Now late Tuesday.
LCROSS now has between 20 pounds and 40 pounds of extra propellant that could be used in unplanned activities, a relatively thin margin for satellite operations.
“We can finish this mission, but it makes our sensitivity to something happening quite high,” Andrews said.
If we were a space-faring nation, we’d send out a fuel truck.
Cracked.com just ran the results of a photoshopping contest entitled, “17 Terrible Jobs We’ll Need In The Future.” Photo #5 is of a space-based fuel depot worker ☺
I remember the ConeXpress concept to be launched on an Ariane 5 some time ago. But I guess that went nowhere:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/conexpress_techwed_040602.html
This is probably a dumb idea, but hey — that’s my job:
Would *solid* fuel be appropriate in a fuel depot? Not loose ammonium perchlorate and aluminum powder, but entire boosters or linkable segments (as with shuttle SRBs) of standard thrust that could be used in Earth-Moon, Earth-asteroid, or Earth-Mars missions to shoulder some of the load. Not as elegant or efficient as liquid fuels, but possibly easier to store for long periods than cryogenic propellants, and possibly easier to transfer.
solids in fuel depot have the advantages of hypergolics, but none of their benefits
as for refuelling LCROSS..even if there was a propellant store at stable orbit nearby ( L1 halo ? ) sending a tug out to refuel it would probably make very little sense, as the probe itself is quite cheap impactor basically.
And if we were a space-faring planet we’d have street cleaners up there collecting up the orbital crap. And getting refueled at orbital depots.