Speaker
Description
Following ESA’s decision to set up a working group on Aeolus reentry at the Aladin workshop in February 2022, Airbus was involved in this working group aiming at defining the best strategy for Aeolus reentry in the evolving context of Space debris mitigation regulations.
This paper presents the overall contribution on this subject over the last 2 years, and covers the definition of a assisted re-entry scenario for Aeolus in terms of flight dynamics and overall scenario and covers the following main aspects:
- Major design elements, trade-offs and sizing approach
- Uncertainties and variability assumptions
- Performance campaigns
Airbus demonstrates that the casualty risk can be reduced by a sensible factor compared to uncontrolled reentry, through a combination of lowering the perigee down to 120 km, controlling the magnitude of the last maneuver based on the last orbit determination data, and phasing the descent with the Earth’s rotation so as to target a nominal reentry in the Atlantic corridor.
This consolidates the possibility for Aeolus to retroactively ensure compliance with the current space safety regulations, even though the mission was not subject to the 10-4 rule during development.
