Technology Demonstrator of a Standardized Deorbit Module Designed for CubeSat and RocketPod Applications
Abstract
The population of man-made orbital debris is growing rapidly, dominating the me-teoroid environment in all but the micrometer size range. Objects between 1 cm and 10 cm - re-ferred to as the lethal population are of most concern, as they are difficult to track and can cause catastrophic damage when colliding with a satellite. Many nanosatellites are launched as secon-dary payloads meaning that the initial orbit can be very constrained and have an expected post-mission lifetime exceeding the recommended 25 years. To address this problem, TUI has de-signed a standard tether module that can be used to reduce the expected lifetime of a nanosatel-lite by increasing its aerodynamic and electrodynamic drag. Most of this module’s design is lev-eraged from TUI’s Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment. The module itself is designed to accommodate tether lengths ranging from up to a few kilometers, and can be read-ily integrated with a CubeSat, RocketPod™ and other larger spacecraft. As a proof-of-concept demonstrator mission, this module is integrated with standard components from other CubeSat mission, and packaged as a RocketPod™ payload. Additional components from the MAST mis-sion are also utilized in this technology demonstration mission.
Technology Demonstrator of a Standardized Deorbit Module Designed for CubeSat and RocketPod Applications
The population of man-made orbital debris is growing rapidly, dominating the me-teoroid environment in all but the micrometer size range. Objects between 1 cm and 10 cm - re-ferred to as the lethal population are of most concern, as they are difficult to track and can cause catastrophic damage when colliding with a satellite. Many nanosatellites are launched as secon-dary payloads meaning that the initial orbit can be very constrained and have an expected post-mission lifetime exceeding the recommended 25 years. To address this problem, TUI has de-signed a standard tether module that can be used to reduce the expected lifetime of a nanosatel-lite by increasing its aerodynamic and electrodynamic drag. Most of this module’s design is lev-eraged from TUI’s Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment. The module itself is designed to accommodate tether lengths ranging from up to a few kilometers, and can be read-ily integrated with a CubeSat, RocketPod™ and other larger spacecraft. As a proof-of-concept demonstrator mission, this module is integrated with standard components from other CubeSat mission, and packaged as a RocketPod™ payload. Additional components from the MAST mis-sion are also utilized in this technology demonstration mission.
