RESULTS OF THE DEPLOYABLE MEMBRANE & ADEO PASSIVE DE-ORBIT SUBSYSTEM ACTIVITIES LEADING TO A DRAGSAIL DEMONSTRATOR

Abstract

The development of a passive de-orbiting subsystem was pursued in the ESA GSTP projects “Deployable Membrane” (DM) and “Architectural Design and Testing of a De-orbiting Subsystem” (ADEO) raising the TRL of the subsystem to TRL 5/6. The ADEO subsystem is a scalable drag augmentation device that uses the residual Earth atmosphere present in low Earth orbit. For initiation of the de-orbit maneuver a large surface is deployed which multiplies the drag effective surface of the satellite. Thereby the drag force is increased as well causing accelerated decay in orbit altitude. Advantageous about a drag augmentation device is that it does not require any active steering and can be designed for passive attitude stabilization thereby making it applicable for non-operational, tumbling spacecraft as well.