TL;DR

General Whiting’s pitch for orbital fuel depots is a direct response to China’s Shijian-21/-25 refueling test.

Commercial players like Orbit Fab and COMSPOC hold key tech and data;

Canadian MDA’s old SIS plan lies buried.

The first operation to mature in-space refueling wins strategic longevity and operational flexibility in GEO.

Cosmic Pit Stop

Aug. 5 the Space & Missile Defense Symposium – Huntsville AL.

Let’s give Space Force General Stephen N. Whiting some credit for jazzing up what usually feels like a snooze-fest at military space conferences. He suggested we turn the geostationary belt into a cosmic version of the local petrol station, complete with tanker trucks and nozzle jockeys refueling high-flying satellites.

Meanwhile, China quietly performed what looked very much like an orbital fuel-transfer rehearsal, guiding two of its spacecraft side by side more than 36,000 kilometers above Earth. That maneuver shifted the conversation from theoretical engineering exercises to the urgent reality of in-space logistics.

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