New Challenges and Opportunities of Passive Deorbiting Systems: Emulation of Micro-Gravity for the ESA-Dragliner

The ESA-Dragliner project, led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute in partnership with Aurora Propulsion Technologies, GRADEL, and the University of Luxembourg,
seeks to develop, produce, assemble, and test a prototype of a tether-based system for deorbiting Low Earth Orbit (LEO) telecommunication satellites. The Dragliner project has chosen the PB (Plasma Brake) microtether, a novel propellant-free
technology designed to efficiently deorbit LEO satellites. This system, which utilizes Coulomb drag, is lightweight, compact, requires minimal power, and operates independently without using resources from the host satellite during deorbiting.
The project’s goal is to preliminarily design this tether-based deorbiting system for LEO satellites, and to produce, assemble and test a Breadboard Model demonstrating the most critical functions. Additionally, the project aims to analyze and optimize
a deorbiting strategy using this technology to successfully deorbit a LEO spacecraft weighing up to 250 kg, reducing its altitude to a maximum of 400 km within 2 years from an initial altitude of 850 km, or within 100 days from an initial altitude
of 550 km. This paper outlines the planned deployment tests of the Dragliner project at the Zero-G Lab of SnT-University of Luxembourg.