A Giant Parachute Pulls Orbital Debris Back to Earth

By Arnie Cooper Posted 08.18.2009 at 9:44 am 4 Comments

Come Sail Away The Aerobraking Sail’s wings sprout from its golden central boom. A planned larger version could pull the fuel tanks from Europe’s Ariane 5 rockets out of orbit. Courtesy EADS Astrium

Having scrubbed the notoriously squalid streets of Paris spotless, the French have set their sights on a bigger clean-up project: the expanding swarm of space debris circling the planet. French spaceflight engineer Brice Santerre of the European aerospace company EADS Astrium has constructed the Aerobraking Sail for bringing defunct satellites out of orbit.

When a satellite dies, the built-in braking system will deploy two inflatable booms, which release a pair of heat-resistant polymer “wings.” The wings increase the friction drag that slows the satellite’s orbit and allow gravity to tug it into the lower atmosphere, where it will burn up in 25 years instead of the typical 50 to 100, Santerre says.

The 50-square-foot sail will get a test run on France’s Microscope satellite in 2016, three years after its launch. Santerre’s team is also applying the tech to the rockets used to put satellites in orbit, which can explode and create thousands of smaller chunks. Santerre says the sail won’t work on things smaller than a beach ball, which regularly ding the space shuttle’s windows on reentry, but it should help mop up the big stuff.

Previous Article: A Dental Filling Made from Bile and Silica

Next Article: "Quantum Quest" Brings Cassini to the Big Screen (Starring William Shatner as Every Star in the Universe)

Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science and enter to win $5,000!

4 Comments

link to this comment

MarcusM

09/04/09 at 5:54 am

Wouldn't it be more practical to require satellite operators to set aside some of the satellite's remaining fuel to de-orbit it after its operational life is over? You would then get the same result in days or weeks, not 25 years. The weight of the sail assembly would itself require additional fuel, would it not?

If there isn't a treaty already requiring nations to avoid adding to space junk, there should be. Then you wouldn't have that total shameful disaster of China blowing up an old weather satellite just to show off its capabilities.

link to this comment

quasi44

11/08/09 at 8:40 pm

Understanding that there is an established treaty in place re people's junk in space, and the common occurrence of space junk in general, whether from a micrometeoroid, or a nut or bolt, makes this a great first attempt to avoid future disasters that as of now, are always a potentiality. I'd imagine a carbon fiber net of sufficiently small mesh size might allow for a larger spread without compromising too much area when wound. Maybe a monofilament net. Neat stuff.

link to this comment

quasi44

11/08/09 at 8:45 pm

I wonder if they use piezoelectric metal for the frame? Seems like that might be a way to deploy without much chance of failure, but then, we are talking about a potentially damaged system...

link to this comment

quasi44

11/08/09 at 8:53 pm

Or is that pneumatics? hmmmm.