Story Identification: Novel/Short Story set in space with a mesh-like satellite

Question

I remember reading this at my local library whilst I waited for my brother. I think it was in a book with a few other short stories.

What I can remember:

• Some sort of mesh/net/grid shaped satellite orbiting earth, and it was malfunctioning. I'm pretty sure it was a communication satellite of some form.
• It has two protagonists in their teens. I don't know how or why they were in space, but they were.
  • They fix the satellite against some guy's orders to stay away from it.
  • I think they 'live' in space, i.e. they haven't come for a trip from Earth, they actually live on a space station nearby the mesh (I remember this because they travel to it from wherever they are).
• There were some bad guy(s) causing the malfunction.

It was a pretty worn book, so I'm thinking it was written earlier than the 90s (I read it in 98/99).

Answer 1

This sounds like The Planetoid Grid by Nicholas Marrat, published in the anthology A Book of Boys' Stories by Robert Bateman and Nicholas Marrat, which was not exclusively science fiction.

The boys were "Space born scouts" named Bluey and Tinder.

Two other plot details that I remember:

• One of the boys uses the phrase "go swallow a spheroid" as an insult.
• The satellite used rubies to transmit sound at the speed of light, and was malfunctioning because the bad guys were stealing them.