Self-cremating Satellite as a Concept of next Generation Satellite wins Space Sustainability Award

The European Interparliamentary Space Conference (EISC) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have awarded the "Space Sustainability Award 2021" in the category "Special Jury Mention" to our scientific employee Esha's concept of the self-cremating satellite as a next generation satellite. It was presented at the fall plenary meeting of the EISC on September 16, 2022. This award recognizes young researchers for their ideas that promote sustainable use of space. It provides a platform for these scientists to present their ideas at the European Interparliamentary Space Conference.

Die Idee befasst sich mit den Nachteilen und Herausforderungen der derzeitigen Segelgeräte. Dazu wurde ein hocheffizientes Segelgerät mit einer gleichbleibend hohen Abklingrate entwickelt. Der wichtigste Aspekt des selbstrotierenden Satelliten ist die Lösung für das Taumeln des Satelliten während des De-Orbitings:

The idea addresses the drawbacks and challenges of current sailing devices. For this purpose, a highly efficient sailing device with a consistently high decay rate was developed.  The most important aspect of the self-cremating satellite is the solution to the tumbling of the satellite while de-orbiting: the satellite rotates itself while remaining in orbit. Thereby, the conventional sail device cannot provide a constant and consistent high drag force to push the satellite down to earth due its single sail membrane. The self-cremating satellite will eject multiple small sail membranes in each direction instead of one large sail membrane. This will insure that at least one sail membrane contributes to the drag forces. Hence, extremely large sail areas are not needed to de-orbit a satellite into orbit, nor an attitude stabilising system to control the rotation of the sail membrane.

Aside from this, material degradation due to harsh space environment is also used to increase the surface-to-mass ratio. The MLI (multi-layer insulation) will be used as the sail membrane after the operational period of the satellite. Therefore, the process of mass degradation will increase during de-orbiting, contributing to a high area-to-mass ratio. This opens the possibility to use sails in large numbers without the risk of high probability of collision. This idea has already been filed for patent by Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe.