Space junk is a serious issue that threatens the safety and sustainability of orbital activities. To address this problem, a team of students from Brown University designed and built a low-cost cube satellite that successfully deorbited itself after completing its mission. The satellite, named SBUDNIC, used a simple plastic drag sail to increase its atmospheric drag and hasten its reentry.
As per the press release, the small cube satellite has burned up high above Turkey after 445 days in orbit. Its reentry into Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday, Aug. 8, marked the successful conclusion of a low-cost experiment aimed at reducing space debris, five years ahead of schedule.
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SBUDNIC: A solution with a shoestring budget
It was one of the smallest and cheapest satellites ever sent to space, costing only about $10,000 and measuring 10 by 10 by 10 centimeters. Built using readily available materials like 48 Energizer AA batteries, SBUDNIC's journey started on Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket last May as part of the Transporter 5 ridesharing mission. Brown alumnus Marco Cross, faculty member Rick Fleeter, and an academically diverse team of undergraduates worked diligently to address the growing problem of space junk.
A key feature of SBUDNIC is a plastic drag sail made from Kapton polyimide. Unfurling like an umbrella at about 520 kilometers, it allowed the satellite to descend to Earth faster than anticipated.
The Kapton polyimide drag sail, attached to the SBUDNIC satellite, helped push the satellite back down to Earth much sooner than anticipated.Credits: Marco Cross/Brown University Press Release
Selia Jindal, a recent Brown graduate and project lead, explained that the aim was to showcase inexpensive ways of deorbiting space debris. She stated, “This showed that we can do that...there are significant plans we can put in place to combat the space junk problem that is cost-effective.”
The main objective of SBUDNIC was to demonstrate that space debris can be reduced by using passive deorbiting devices that do not require any propulsion or complex mechanisms. The students chose Kapton polyimide, a material commonly used in spacecraft insulation, to make a drag sail that deployed like an umbrella once the satellite reached its orbit at about 520 kilometers above the Earth.
Impact on space debris reduction
The implications of this successful proof of concept could be substantial in the fight against space debris.
Dheraj Ganjikunta, a Brown graduate of 2022 and the lead program manager of SBUDNIC, contrasted the project with other more expensive and complex solutions for space junk, such as space tow trucks or nets. Praising the SBUDNIC for its low-cost and simple approach to tackling the problem of space junk, he said that SBUDNIC was amazing because it used a simple $30 drag device that could be attached to satellites and shorten their orbital lifespan.
NASA reports that more than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris or space junk are being monitored by the global Space Surveillance Network of the Department of Defense. The worst-case scenario is a satellite explosion setting off a chain reaction, hitting other satellites in the same orbit. Marco Cross, SBUDNIC’s chief engineer, warned, “We need to be prepared.”
