ADEO - Architectural Design and Testing of a De-orbiting subsystem
ADEO
ADEO-L brake sails successfully deployed in the laboratory
Years of DLR research into components in braking sails for satellites are now being put into practice in collaboration with the company HPS. Braking sails are intended to ensure that decommissioned satellites from low Earth orbit can be disposed of more quickly.
As part of the Clean Space roadmap, ESA is researching and developing technologies that will prevent the formation of space debris. The Code of Conduct stipulates that satellites must be deorbited within 25 years after passivation at the end of their useful life.
The ESA's ADEO project aims to develop an ultra-light, deployable sail to increase the aerodynamic attack surface in order to passively bring rough-terrain vehicles from low Earth orbit to re-entry within 25 years.
At the DLR site in Bremen, strategies are being developed and implemented for stowage and deployment, and all tests are being carried out in accordance with the verification strategies for large and deployable structures developed by the Institute of Space Systems. Research into solar sails, carried out over the years by DLR, and in particular findings from the DLR project, Gossamer-1, are being used as a basis for this. In this regard, the Institute has a vacuum table, which can be used in the production of the sail; a thermal vacuum chamber for simulating the climb experienced during launch as well as the conditions during the operational phase; and a self-developed development test facility for large deployable membrane structures. The development testing of deployable membranes in vacuum is being made possible thanks to the new and large Space Simulation Chamber (Weltraumsimulationsanlage; WSA).
