Deployment Testing of the De-Orbit Sail Flight Hardware

The paper describes the results of the deployment testing of the De-Orbit Sail flight hardware, a drag sail for de-orbiting applications, performed by DLR. It addresses in particular the deployment tests of the fullscale sail subsystem and deployment force tests performed on the boom deployment module. For the fullscale sail testing a gravity compensation device is used which is described in detail. It allows observations of the in-plane interaction of the booms with the sail membrane and the central satellite body to which the booms and sails are attached. During the tests issues with the sail deployment tests were encountered which lead to design changes regarding the sail and type of sail attachment.