I picked a GPS satellite at random. It was launched in 1996 and has a design life of 7.5 years. That means it passed its design life 5 years ago.
Do we want to continue relying on satellites that are already beyond their designed lifetime? Or do we want to have replacements ready to go into service?
-- It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Combat Chuck Too Many Cannibals Premium join:2001-11-29 Erie, PA
I suspect however that that "Design life" number is more of a measure of futureproof-ness than of useful life.
Off the top of my head I believe the average time from launch until a satellite has a critical failure that causes it to not be able to do what it was designed to do is about 15 years. -- Come let us reason together.
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