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Long-life satellites that stay at the cutting edge of technology are being
patented by aerospace firm TRW of California (EP 1137196). Telecoms firms often
don’t want them to last longer than five years because the technology on board
goes out of date so fast. TRW’s answer is to make the craft last a decade, but
after a few years send up a high-tech satellite to sit alongside it. The
shorter-lived, secondary satellite contains far more intelligent circuitry and
can do the latest processing or encrypting tasks. The secondary craft behaves
like a plug-in processor card for souping up an ageing PC.