DARPA sued as competition to build space robots heats up

Orbital ATK, a Dulles-based aerospace manufacturer, is suing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency over plans to award a Canadian firm a $15 million contract to build a fleet of space-faring robots capable of repairing government and commercial satellites. Satellites are often declared obsolete because of problems that could be fixed easily if the objects were accessible, and the satellites’ owners are saddled with the extra costs of sending replacements into orbit.