Speaker
Description
Design-for-demise looks at technical solutions to reduce the casualty risk on ground of re-entering satellites and their components by promoting demise during atmospheric re-entry. Earlier studies have shown that the early release of the satellite structure will also help to improve the overall demise of the satellite. A broad range of current joining samples were tested under a range of conditions in order to broaden the current understanding. A wide range of phenomena was exhibited by the samples and a number of different failure scenarios were seen to be dependent upon technologies tested, heat flux profiles, and the mechanical loads, among other influencing factors.
Based on the improved understanding, design concepts which would result in earlier joint demise were identified for potential further investigation. This showed a considerable preference towards leveraging the introduced heat and enabling clear and decisive separation. Based on an elaborated trade-off system, four joining concepts have been selected for subsequent tests in a plasma wind tunnel and re-entry chamber. Testing compared the demiseability to the state-of-the-art technology and assessed their demise performance. Based on the results, the appropriate utilisation of demise technology can improve the demise of any given spacecraft and by association, reduce the casualty risk on the ground.
A dedicatedly designed demisable insert has achieved the best overall results, especially in terms of system impact, performance and costs. Potentially, this design concept can be used as replacement to standard inserts for early opening of any LEO spacecraft. Some work is still required for improving the scalability and flight qualification for attaining large-scale implementation.
