System Design, Development and Ground Verification of a Separable De-Orbit Mechanism for the Orbital Manoeuvre of Micro-Satellite ALE-1

Pala, Alperen; Kuwahara, Toshinori; Honda, Tomoyuki; Uto, Hiroki; Kaneko, Tetsuya; Potier, Adrien; Tangdhanakanond, Pasith; Fujita, Shin; Shibuya, Yoshihiko; Sato, Yuji; Shibuya, Tomomasa; Koh, Kern

doi:10.2322/tastj.19.360

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…A detailed description of the mechanisms and satellite subsystems of ALE-1 can be found in [7,18,19]. Each phase transition is initiated by stored commands that are uplinked from the ground station after the required status checks for each phase transition have been verified [11].…”

Section: Mission Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the initial estimation, ALE-1 with the SDOM deployed was expected to descend to the ISS orbital altitude in about 650 days [18]; in contrast with the estimation, however, the deployed SDOM experienced a series of problems. On 28 December 2019, one of the film's four corner connections was found to be damaged, which left only half the area of the film effective for drag.…”

Section: Mission Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

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De-Orbit Maneuver Demonstration Results of Micro-Satellite ALE-1 with a Separable Drag Sail

et al. 2023

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ALE-1, a micro-satellite created for the demonstration of artificial shooting stars, required orbital descent before mission execution due to safety aspects in orbit. ALE-1 utilized a drag sail called SDOM (Separable De-Orbit Mechanism) for a passive de-orbit maneuver, which was successfully completed, lowering the orbit from about 500 km down to about 400 km. This paper summarizes the detailed history of satellite operation and the results of the de-orbit maneuver demonstration during the past three years. Although the SDOM sail faced difficulty in keeping the desired deployed shape of the drag sail due to mechanical troubles, by letting the sail be a drag flag instead, it could still deliver a meaningful de-orbit performance to allow the satellite to successfully lower the orbit as planned. The de-orbit effect of the drag flag was evaluated using comparisons between orbit propagation simulations and the actual orbit transition flight data provided in the form of TLE (Two-Line Element) sets. Through this study, it is demonstrated that the SDOM can provide orbit transfer capabilities for satellites. Furthermore, the de-orbit performance of the drag flag can be evaluated, which could be an important reference for the future implementation of de-orbit devices to solve space debris problems.

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