We've all heard that we should "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" to save the planet, but what about applying any of the "three R's" to space?

Researchers at USC Viterbi's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are tackling this challenge—looking at how to reuse physical items that are already in space, namely, old satellites.

Legacy Satellites

There are currently several thousand satellites orbiting Earth. Many have already completed their missions or have outlived their primary lifespans—these are "legacy satellites." And while some of them may have broken hardware and will eventually run out of energy, leave orbit, and burn out in space, others are physically in good condition. So, the question becomes: what to do with them?

Alefiya Hussain, ISI Research Team Leader explained, "This project is looking at ways to possibly reuse satellites for different things. We are collaborating with the software company Tangram Flex to figure out how we can replace the software components within the satellites to re-purpose them."

She continued, "The approach we've taken is to look inside the satellite and say, this particular piece of software did this particular function before, can we actually replace that function to make it do something else as a path to repurposing it?"