D‐SAT Mission: an In‐Orbit Demonstration of a Solid Propellant Satellite Decommissioning Device

The increasing population in space of defunct satellites and other man-made debris is an issue that is getting strongly the interest of legislators, agencies and industry. In order to guarantee a safer and sustainable access to orbit, it is necessary to stop the systematic non-operative defunct satellites concentration increase in orbit. This seems to be feasible with an approach based on a preventive debris removal solution, whereby a dedicated and independent de/re-orbiting propulsion system is installed on the satellite prior to launch allowing a safe and quick decommissioning of the spacecraft before it will become a debris. For this reason, D-Orbit has developed a Decommissioning Device based on solid propellant propulsion to be used for debris mitigation purposes. Such a Decommissioning Device is designed to be as compact, independent and autonomous as possible and able of quickly and safely disposing of a satellite at its end-of-life in a controlled manner. To enter the market with this disruptive technology, D-Orbit decided to invest in a 3-Unit CubeSat demonstration mission, called D-SAT. The nanosatellite, scheduled for launch in Q4 2016, will be released into LEO and will demonstrate in-orbit the capability of D-Orbit’s technology. D-SAT will be the first satellite ever to be actively de-orbited in a quick, safe, reliable and controlled way. This paper presents the overall project, its actual status and its main objectives, together with the main challenges that D-Orbit has faced from the beginning to identify the high-level requirements, which considers the similarities between the Decommissioning Device for CubeSats and other spacecrafts. Finally, a dedicated section presents the partnerships and their role in the project.