The EVA footage of the satellite capture was taken during the STS-49 mission in 1992 (the maiden flight of Orbiter "Endeavour"), when for the first time a three-man EVA was carried out to retrieve the failed Intelsat VI-F3 comsat after attempts to pick it up with the capture apparatus had been unsuccessful.
This episode takes place at Vandenberg Air Force Base, as of May 2021 is known as Vandenberg Space Force Base, which is located in Santa Barbara County, California. The land the base is built on was initially acquired by the United States Army in 1941, the Army built a desert training facility for infantry forces and named it Camp Cooke. In June of 1957 control of the base was transferred to the United States Air Force and it was renamed Cooke Air Force Base, the Air Force used it as a training and testing site for the first nuclear armed ballistic missiles and on January 1, 1958 it became the first Air Force base to have operational intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). In October of 1958 the base was renamed to Vandenberg Air Force base in honor of General Hoyt Vandenberg, the Air Force's second Chief of Staff, nearly every type of ICBM developed by the U.S. was tested at Vandenberg. It also became a launch site for the United States first artificial satellites, the world's first polar orbiting satellite, Discovery 1, was launched from Vandenberg. From 1972 to 1989 Vandenberg was selected as the alternate West Coast launch and landing site for the Space Shuttle program, but it was never used for that and following the Challenger disaster Vandenberg was removed from the Space Shuttle program in December of 1989. On May 14, 2021 control of Vandenberg was transferred to the newly formed United States Space Force, it is designated as a launch and landing site for some of the commercial space vehicles being contracted by NASA including the Delta IV, Atlas V and the SpaceX Falcon. It also still houses some of the United States nuclear missiles and is still a launch and training site for military and commercial satellites.
Dr. Gallant is said to have been developing a superconducting, magnetic ion engine, which could have been the future of interplanetary travel. An engine of this type is actually being developed and as of 2022 is moving out of the experimental phase into the practical phase, this type of engine can allow a spacecraft to reach speeds of 200,000 miles per hour, by comparison the space shuttle has a top speed of 18,000 miles per hour. An ion engine is expected to power the spacecraft for the first manned mission to Mars, NASA says it could be ready by 2030.