[mdorazio]

Your comment assumes we still need fleshy meatbags wearing clunky suits in orbit to fix things. This was true 15 years ago, but I'm not convinced it's still true today. A couple of repair drones housed at the ISS combined with repair parts brought up along with normal resupply missions could probably be made to work if it was deemed cost effective.

[rtkwe]

The ISS isn't in a particularly good orbit because it's highly inclined (so Russia could easily launch to it) which is an expensive issue to fix dV wise unless all the target satellites are in a similarly inclined orbit. In terms of making them easy to swap out that's certainly possible but it will add weight compared to a monolithic satellite and so far we have very very little experience building and repairing things in space without using people.

[plotteddancer16]

This is a misconception. The ISS is not in an orbit that’s suitable for repairing satellites in other orbits.

[dragonwriter]

> could probably be made to work

IOW, is a speculative, unproven idea.