Successful in-flight demonstration of the ADEO braking sail

The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System (ADEO) breaking sail was efficiently deployed from the ION satellite service in late December 2022. A sail space of three.6 sq. meters was autonomously deployed from an impressively small packing measurement of 10 x 10 x 10 cm to exhibit deorbiting satellite expertise.

ADEO’s deployment was captured in entrance of the “eyes” of the built-in digital camera onboard the ION satellite service, as ADEO unfurled displaying its “wings,” and instantly initiated the satellite’s descent—often known as deorbiting. The picture reveals one fringe of the sail—a big aluminum-coated polyamide membrane hooked up to 4 carbon-fiber bolstered booms, following its jack-in-a-box deployment.

The sail offers a passive technique of deorbiting by rising the atmospheric floor drag impact and inflicting an accelerated decay within the satellite’s orbital altitude. The satellite will ultimately burn-up within the ambiance, offering a faster residue-free technique of disposal. ADEO gently pushes the ION satellite service, as if it is on “angel wings,” out of its orbit and in direction of Earth’s ambiance.

Adeptly named “Present Me Your Wings” the ADEO-mission is the ultimate in-flight qualification check wanted to offer the technological proof-of-concept. A smaller 2.5 sq. meter sail was fitted onto the higher stage of the Electron launch automobile “Its Enterprise Time” mission in 2018 and a number of other parabolic flights had been carried out from 2019 to 2022.

The ADEO check mannequin is the smallest variation of the ADEO product household, designed particularly for the de-orbit of small satellites within the 1–100 kg class vary. The method is nevertheless scalable for medium and enormous measurement satellites. A number of items, on one satellite or an upper stage can also be choice, if the lodging of a bigger sail is unfeasible.

Tailored options rely on the preliminary orbit, satellite mass and required de-orbiting time. The most important variation might be as large as 100 sq. meters and take as much as 45 minutes to deploy. The smallest sail is simply 3.5 sq. meters and deploy in simply 0.8 seconds.

ADEO expertise offers a secure, strong and sustainable technique of passively de-orbiting small satellites. Passive strategies of deorbiting are advantageous in eliminating the necessity for energetic steering, with no extra GNC or propulsion subsystem. The system might be designed for passive angle stabilization and the method is relevant for non-operational and tumbling satellites

Reliably eradicating satellites as they method their system end-of-life, or satellites which have turn into unresponsive, is a key side in ESA’s ESA’s Zero Particles Initiative. Invaluable orbits turn into out there to be used and the likelihood of undesirable collision decreases—which might solely create the subsequent era of space particles.