Interesting News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Tucked amid the other gear inside the cargo bay of NASA's last space shuttle to fly will be a novel experiment: a robot gas station for spacecraft that, if successful, could change how satellites are designed.

NASA engineers are packing up the so-called Robotic Refueling Mission hardware and other equipment for delivery to the International Space Station on the shuttle Atlantis, which is set to fly July 8. The flight, STS-135, is NASA's last-ever shuttle mission to the station before the 30-year-old orbiter program is retired for good. [Gallery: Shuttle Atlantis' Last Launch Pad Trek]

Normally, when a satellite is launched into orbit it, is already carrying all the fuel for its entire mission onboard. Once that fuel runs out, the satellite's life is effectively over. That fact makes it tough for old satellites — as well as craft launched into the wrong orbit and ones that suffer a malfunction — to keep working. But this new in-space refueling project could change things

Developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Robotic Refueling Mission experiment will include a set of tools that could