ADEO: the European commercial passive de-orbit subsystem family enabling space debris mitigation

Abstract

The ADEO subsystem is a scalable drag augmentation device that uses the residual Earth atmosphere present in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to passively de-orbit of satellites between 1 and 2000 kg. For the de-orbit maneuvre, a large surface is deployed which multiplies the drag effective surface of the satellite significantly. Thereby the drag force is increased as well causing accelerated decay in orbit altitude. Advantageous about a drag augmentation device is that it does not require any active steering and can be designed for passive attitude stabilization thereby making it applicable for non-operational, tumbling spacecrafts as well. The ADEO subsystem consists of four deployable booms that span four sail segments in a planar shaped configuration. While the sails are made of an aluminum-coated polyimide foil, its coating thickness was chosen such that it provides sufficient protection from the LEO space environment. The current activity commenced in August 2018 is going to provide a fully qualified Protoflight Model (PFM) for a follow-up “In Orbit Demonstration” (IOD) in 2021/2022 (ADEO is selected as payload on the European Commission IOD/IOV satellite programme). In May 2020, the team passed the Manufacturing Readiness Review (MRR). An extensive Breadboarding- and Engineering Model campaign including life tests had already been carried out in 2019. The first ADEO-L PFM consists of a 5 m x 5 m dragsail deployed under control of own onboard electronics. Optionally, ADEO-L systems can be equipped with a so-called “watchdog routine” inside the electronics which is able to recognize the point in time when the satellite has come to the end of its life circle. With the help of an on-board battery the sail will be deployed automatically after a certain time in orbit. Operating like this, ADEO-L can be truly called “100% passive”, a “CleanGreen Space Mission”. First commercial candidate missions to be targeted after the successful EC-IOD mission were already identified by Airbus DS (DE) and QinetiQ (BE).