I am curious if a similar mission could be undertaken to retrieve a long lived satellite from orbit and bring it back down to Earth in one piece. I imagine there could be learnings from seeing how different materials and structures faired in space over long periods of time.
This is really awesome. Also interesting that the satellite has been operating way longer than designed. Just like the rovers on Mars.
I really wonder whether we will be sending fuel up to refurbish the satellites or that satellites will become disposable with planned obsolescence.
The electronics on-board will degrade over time due to radiation effects and the batteries will at some point hold no charge. It's probably cost-effective to just send up an MEV to cover you for a few years while you decide if that satellite actually needs to be replaced. Commercial GEO satellites are not as popular as they once were. The new thing now is launching constellations in LEO for dirt cheap (a la Starlink). You don't need to keep LEO satellites up there for 15 year missions because they can easily and quickly be replaced. Planned obsolescence is the future.