System Design, Development and Ground Verification of a Separable De-Orbit Mechanism for the Orbital Manoeuvre of Micro-Satellite ALE-1
Alperen Pala, Toshinori Kuwahara, Tomoyuki HONDA, Hiroki Uto, Tetsuya Kaneko, Adrien Potier, Pasith Tangdhanakanond, Shinya Fujita, Yoshihiko Shibuya, Yuji Sato, Tomomasa Shibuya, Koh Kamachi
Abstract
ALE project is a micro-satellite project with the mission objective of artificial generation of a shooting star. The first satellite of this project (ALE-1) is launched in January of 2019 at an orbit of approximately 500 km of altitude. There are manned missions in the International Space Station at an altitude lower than this, therefore the altitude of ALE-1 needs to be lowered before the actual mission start. There exist mechanical systems that allow a passive lowering of the altitude of satellites by accelerating the natural decay of the orbit with use of a thin polyimide film as a drag sail. Previously such systems were only used to de-orbit completely and decrease space-debris. We propose and design a mechanical system which allows operation of the satellite during de-orbiting, and separation of the drag sail when the desired altitude is reached. We consider sufficient power generation during de-orbiting; passive stabilization of the satellite attitude for shorter de-orbiting time; and mechanical safety and reliability of the system. This paper summarizes the design, development, and ground verification of the proposed module SDOM (Separable De-Orbit Mechanism) along with a projected orbital decay of ALE-1 satellite.