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A Low Cost Inflatable Cubesat Drag Brake Utilizing Sublimation, Adam Charles Horn

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The United Nations Inter-Agency Debris Coordination Committee has adopted a 25-year post-mission lifetime requirement for any satellite orbiting below 2000 km in order to mitigate the growing orbital debris threat. Low-cost CubeSats have become important satellite platforms with startling capabilities, but this guideline restricts them to altitudes below 600 km because they remain in orbit too long. In order to enable CubeSat deployments at higher release altitudes, a low-cost, ultra-reliable deorbit device is needed.

This thesis reports on efforts to develop a deployable and passively inflatable drag brake that can deorbit from higher orbital altitudes, thereby complying with the 25-year …