A mission “made for destruction.” This is how the European Space Agency presents the Draco mission (Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object): “Throughout almost seventy years of space flights – the agency explains in the presentation –, some 10,000 intact satellites and rockets have re-entered the Earth. atmosphere, and many more will do so in the future. However, for such a frequent occurrence, we still do not have a clear view of what really happens to a satellite during its final moments as it burns up”.
In short, Draco, a satellite of about 200 kilos and the size of a washing machine, will have a suicide mission, literally. The ESA has hired the Spanish company Deimos to develop the “kamikaze” that will only remain in space for a maximum of 12 hours and is valued at 17 million euros.
“Currently, it is impossible to recreate the exact circumstances on the ground – says Stijn Lemmens, head of the Draco project, referring to what happens during reentry -. We can resort to experimentation to test various materials and elements of a spacecraft in wind tunnels on a limited scale, but still It is not possible to faithfully imitate the incredible speed, strength and the movements of uncontrolled reentry”.
The launch will take place in 2027 and will become the first mission to re-enter in a controlled manner after just 12 hours, a time that will allow it to reach a maximum altitude of 1,000 kilometers. At that moment your controlled descent will begin.
The scientific part of the mission (obtaining as much information as possible) will provide Draco with 200 sensors and four cameras that will be responsible for recording a re-entry at around 30,000 km/h and with temperatures above 2,500 °C.
The information obtained will be stored in a “black box” of about 40 centimeters designed to survive high temperatures and possible impact. To this we must add that all devices on board must be “Durable enough to collect data for as long as possible while the satellite around them burns up,” adds Lemmens.
Draco’s real mission begins when re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere has already been completed. At that moment the satellite must not only be able to activate its parachute and land (fingers crossed) in the sea, it must also be able, eIn a period of just 20 minutes, send all the information obtained to a geostationary satellite… to which it must be connected.
“Draco is an exciting mission that will shed light on many of the unknowns that arise during satellite re-entries – concludes Tim Flohrer, director of ESA’s space debris office -. The irony is that the development of your ship and capsule will benefit primarily from the data you will collect. Draco will get us out of the chicken and egg loop and will create a different data set to calibrate our systems and models, and will advance the implementation of zero waste technologies in the near future.”