Speaker
Description
The ADEO-N subsystem is the smallest of a scalable drag augmentation device family ADEO that uses the residual Earth atmosphere present in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to passively de-orbit small satellites. For the de-orbit manoeuvre a large surface is deployed which multiplies the drag effective surface of the satellite significantly. Thereby the drag force is increased, causing accelerated decay in orbit altitude. An advantage of a drag augmentation device compared to other de-orbit methods is, that it does not require any active steering and can be designed for passive attitude stabilization thereby making it applicable for non-operational, non-stabilized spacecrafts as well. The ADEO-N subsystem consists of four deployable booms that span a sail in a planar shaped configuration. While the sail is made of an aluminium coated polyimide foil, its coating thickness was chosen such that it provides sufficient protection from the LEO space environment. ADEO-N (ADEO-N2 mission) successfully deployed its 3.6 m² drag sail onboard of D-Orbit’s “Dauntless David” ION Satellite Carrier on the 15th of December 2022. The deployment could be recorded by the onboard camera system and gives an outstanding and great video and photo evidence of the performance of the ADEO-N drag sail module.
Beginning with the sail deployment the onboard telemetry data directly from the ION Satellite Carrier is constantly collected and the results investigated together with our partners ESA, D-Orbit and the company Astos. By means of these data the performance of the ADEO-N dragsail is studied in detail from 500 to 400 km orbital altitude.
First outcome is that the deorbit time is already reduced by the factor of approximately 5-10, which is already a great result considering the satellite mass and dragsail area. Additionally, it can be stated that due to the usage of ADEO a stabilisation effect has set, keeping the rotation at 1.5 deg/sec after about 2 months.
All over the gained data and results give a lot of confidence in the ADEO subsystem and its possible contribution to the Zero Debris Policy and Requirements.
