TAMPA, Fla. — A group of European companies has secured government funds to test an inflatable drag sail in space by 2028, designed to swiftly deorbit its host satellite after mission completion.
Two-year-old Portuguese startup Spaceo is leading the consortium, which announced a 3 million euro ($3.3 million) contract from the European Space Agency March 18 for the demonstration in low Earth orbit.
French hosted payload provider SpaceLocker will manage the integration of the drag sail onto the host satellite, which will be provided by Dutch smallsat specialist GomSpace. SolidFlow of the Netherlands is responsible for developing the gas generator needed to inflate the sail for the SWIFT (Spacecraft With Inflatable Termination) project.
The system is designed to be initially 20 square centimeters in size but would inflate about 7,500 times larger to around 1.5 square meters, increasing atmospheric drag to accelerate deorbiting.
According to Spaceo CEO João Loureiro, the increased drag should reduce the satellite’s altitude from 500 to 400 kilometers in under a year, with full deorbit expected within 14-16 months. Without SWIFT, he said, the satellite would take around 10 years to naturally burn up in the atmosphere.
While the system is being fitted to a 12U cubesat measuring 20 x 20 x 30 centimeters with a 20-kilogram mass, Loureiro said it could be scaled for larger satellites up to 200 kilograms.
Deorbit alternatives
A growing number of satellites rely on onboard propulsion to maneuver and lower their altitude for deorbiting. However, this method requires the satellite to be functional at the end of its mission and consumes fuel that could otherwise be used for operational tasks.
“SWIFT will be triggered even if the satellite fails or is malfunctioning,” Loureiro said.
On March 15, California-based Vestigo Aerospace launched its Sphinx drag sail demonstrator as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-13 rideshare mission. Unlike SWIFT, which inflates, Vestigo’s Spinnaker drag sail deploys using lightweight booms.
Vestigo Aerospace spokesperson Ben Spencer said telemetry has confirmed the spacecraft — based on Astro Digital’s Corvus Micro platform — is functioning post-launch.
The company plans to deploy the drag sail in the second half of April, with deorbit expected just 16 days later.
Spencer said Sphinx was deployed at around 500 kilometers, with the combined spacecraft — Spinnaker and the Corvus Micro bus — weighing just over 33 kilograms and measuring 39 x 47 x 71 centimeters. When fully deployed, Spinnaker’s frontal surface area expands to 18.8 square meters.
