A NASA-funded dragsail could see commercial orders as soon as next year. 

A dragsail is a large area of flexible material designed to compress in a spacecraft and once the satellite’s mission is over, expand to ensure it decays from Earth orbit as fast as possible. Previously, these have been bespoke structures made for a few satellites mainly as a test. Now a company called Vestigo Aerospace is making a line of standardized sails called Spinnaker, able to be installed on any spacecraft. The work is funded through a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant award plus some private investment. This Phase 2E grant follows two previous rounds of SBIR funding and other private investments.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the agency delegated to manage the permits for satellite communications in the U.S. The current FCC regulations mandate that all defunct satellites owned by American companies below 600 kilometers decay from orbit in less than 25 years, with special incentives for smallsats that decay in six years.

The FCC is currently in the process of reducing that timeline for all satellites operated by U.S. companies – and other satellites seeking to provide service to customers in the U.S. – to five years. The reason for the updated regulation is that Low Earth Orbit is much more crowded than it was at the time of the original regulation. Half of the approximately 4,800 active satellites in Low Earth Orbit have been launched in the last two years. They have clustered at an altitude of just under 600 kilometers to comply with the regulation without any special effort. This increases collision risk due to the sheer number of satellites in that orbit.

The new regulation, once it’s put into force, will exempt all current satellites and all satellites launched two years after it goes into effect from the requirements. Once it goes into effect, scientific and other research satellites will be able to apply for waivers in their special cases. The FCC has been working with the industry since 2018 on the new rule. The final rule could be officially adopted this month during the monthly meeting of the FCC.

More Information

Purdue University press release

Mitigating Orbital Debris by Shortening Time for Satellite Disposal Post-Mission (FCC)