Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said on the 13th that it developed a deorbit device capable of capturing and removing rapidly increasing space debris in low Earth orbit and succeeded in a ground demonstration.
The conventional method of removing space debris has a cleaning satellite directly approach the debris, capture it, and guide it to reenter the atmosphere, which meant an expensive satellite could only be used for a one-off mission. KARI applied a concept that separates the deorbit device for removing space debris from the cleaning satellite that carries and deploys it. By loading multiple deorbit devices onto a single cleaning satellite and using them for each debris-removal mission, KARI said the cleaning satellite can be operated repeatedly, greatly boosting reusability and cost-effectiveness.
The deorbit device developed by KARI has a towing function that attaches a towing plate to space debris and pulls it in, and a capture function that securely grabs the debris once approached. Notably, although this deorbit device is a compact unit the size of a rice cooker, when deployed it uses a solar sail of about 25㎡—large enough to cover a studio floor—to retrieve space debris into the atmosphere without any propellant, relying only on interactions between sunlight and the thin atmosphere in low Earth orbit.
KARI expects the technology to be applicable not only to space-debris removal but also to various space fields, including rendezvous and docking technology and deep-space solar sail propulsion technology.
KARI President Lee Sang-cheol said, "We plan to continue research so that deorbit device technology using solar sails can be used not only for sustainable space environment management but also in various areas of space activities," adding, "We will continue to work to secure technologies to respond to the future space environment."