As futuristic as it sounds, real estate in space is booming. Big companies and scientific research organizations are actively vying to send satellites into orbit for extraordinary reasons – to develop a free internet connection; to improve GPS systems; monitoring climate change; even analyzing Albert Einstein’s trippy equations of general relativity.
But as humanity continues to advance technologically, experts are increasingly concerned about a major problem: we’ve found a new area of the universe to pollute. From 2021, NASA saidmore than 27,000 orbital debris, or “space debris” resided in the gravitational tides of our planet – and since then only SpaceX has sent hundreds of other satellites up there.
Typically, when they’re done with their gear, scientists kind of wait for things in Earth’s orbit to start deorbiting and eventually burn up in our atmosphere. This natural process, however, can take a very very) long duration.
So, in the hope of paving a cleaner future for our space dreams, the The European Space Agency announced the promise of reinforcement of its innovative aluminum-clad sail prototype. This device can go into orbit with a satellite and help it deorbit at any time.
The concept is called the Drag Augmentation Deorbit System, or ADEO, drag sail — and in late December, the smallest of its kind completed its last successful demonstration mission since the program premiered in 2018.
Artist’s impression of ESA’s brake sail concept prototype.
ESA
How it works?
Basically, ESA folded the 3.5 square meter (38 ft) sail in until it could fit into what essentially looks like a 10 centimeter (4 inch) jack-in-the-box assembly. . The scientists then attached the component to a privately built spacecraft called the ION satellite carrier. ION was launched via a Falcon 9 rocket on June 30, 2021.
Then, in December 2022, the sail was unfurled to showcase a silver polyamide membrane attached to four carbon-reinforced arms positioned in an X-shape. This increased what is known as the carrier’s atmospheric surface drag. satellite, which refers to a force generated by atoms near the top of the atmosphere moving opposite to the relative motion of something in low Earth orbit. You can think of drag as friction, but with air.
With such enhanced drag, the spacecraft began to lower its orbital altitude at an accelerated rate, accelerating the satellite’s ultimate demise: burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.
“The ADEO-N sail will ensure that the satellite will return in about a year and three months, when otherwise it would have returned in four to five years,” said Tiziana Cardone, an ESA structural engineer who supervised the project. said in a statement.
A view from the ION satellite camera after unfurling the sail.
HTS
For a wonderful mental picture of it all, ESA sees the silver sail as the satellite’s “angel wings”, gently helping it float to its death. The official name of ADEO’s last mission was, appropriately, “Show Me Your Wings”.
Going forward, the agency says this sail can also be made larger or smaller depending on the type of satellite it is connected to.
“The largest variation can be as large as 100 square meters and take up to 45 [minutes] to deploy,” the agency said in a press release. “The smallest sail is only 3.5 square meters and deploys in just 0.8 seconds!”
Passive drag systems like this aren’t exactly a new concept. According to NASAthese devices represent the “most common deorbit device” for satellites in low earth orbit, and have an advantage because they are quite easy to handle and can be stored very compactly.
But what’s striking about ESA’s recent achievement with ADEO is that it appears to be working extremely well, in line with widespread efforts to alleviate the enormous problem of space junk. Last year, for example, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a new “five-year rule” for the deorbiting of satellitesdown from the previous 25 years, and ESA itself has a major initiative to fight against space pollution.
“We want to establish a zero-debris policy, which means that if you put a spacecraft into orbit, you have to take it out,” ESA director general Josef Aschbacher said in a statement last year.
