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> it would be a lot of work for not much bang.

I don't know. Surely it will be a sellable feature of Starship eventually to service and/or return aging sats from orbit. Grabbing an F9 second stage feels like the perfect way to demonstrate that capability. It's not like they're going to have a shortage of Starships returning from orbit in the future.

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Low orbits clean themselves up relatively quickly though, and that’s where most of the newest satellites are going.

One of the Shuttle’s selling points was exactly this mission. Apparently it recovered a total of five satellites, three of which were research satellites launched specifically with the expectation of being recovered ahead of time. The other two were mis-launched into the wrong orbit because of a rocket failure. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/15094/what-satelli...

Cross between The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker?

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