of this invention the components 330 360 remain with the satellite 380 to provide support services to the satellite 380 when the satellite is deployed as discussed further below alternative arrangements will be evident to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of this disclosure for example fig5 illustrates an orbit transfer vehicle 400 for use with a satellite 480 having an integral body with conventional means 315 for securing the satellite 480 to a launch vehicle not shown copending u s patent application u201c a spacecraft kernel u201d ser no 09 337 154 filed jun 21 1999 for richard d fleeter and scott a mcdermott and incorporated by reference herein teaches the use of a kernel system that includes components common to spacecraft operations with a well defined interface to mission specific components of a satellite system conceptually the kernel system is provided for common spacecraft functions independent of the particular mission and independent of the particular spacecraft configuration for example recognizing that communications equipment power regulation equipment battery backup systems and the like are typically required in any spacecraft the kernel system of the referenced patent application provides one or more of these functional items in a preferred embodiment of this invention the orbit transfer vehicle includes a kernel system that provides the communications power management and other common functions to the transfer vehicle in accordance with another aspect of this invention this kernel system is also configured to provide these communications power management and other common functions to the payload satellite that is when the satellite is placed in the target orbit the kernel is configured to remain with the payload satellite regardless of whether other components of the transfer vehicle.