UK CubeSail satellite

The Surrey Space Centre team have developed a device to drag space debris out of orbit and will be launching a 3U CubeSat demonstrator.

BBC News reports that the team plan to launch CubeSail at the end of 2011. It is a small satellite 10*10*30cm that deploys a thin 25-sq-m plastic sheet. Residual air molecules present in the spacecraft's Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will catch the sheet and pull the object out of the sky much faster than is normal.

The Surrey Space Centre team at Guildford says the concept could be fitted to larger satellites and even rocket stages. The group also envisages that a mature system would even be sent to rendezvous and dock with redundant spacecraft to clean them from orbit.

Debris from old launches can be a serious problem. Earlier this year the rocket body of a Russian Federation Cosmos launcher nearly collided with the Amateur Radio satellite SEEDS (CO-66).

During its year long mission CubeSail will use its sail to demonstrate "propellantless propulsion" by trying to shift the path it takes across the surface of the Earth by a few degrees.

Read the full BBC News report 'Tiny cube to tackle space debris' at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8590103.stm

Amateur radio satellite SEEDS has 'near miss'
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2010/
seeds_near_miss.htm

Surrey Space Centre
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/

Live webcasts from UK Space Conference Friday/Saturday
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/march2010/
space_conference_webcast.htm

AMSAT-UK publish a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, that is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Join online at https://secure.amsat.org.uk/subs_form/

AMSAT-UK
http://www.uk.amsat.org/