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

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