Falling twice as high as a dozen miles in the stratosphere, a paraglider has landed safely on Earth in a significant milestone aimed at removing space debris.
The high-altitude test flight in April 2022 was the beginning of Outpost Technologies’ vision: to slowly return used space hardware to Earth for reflight or examination. That hardware could be a low-fuel satellite, or scientific experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS).
There is an urgent need to help with both industries. Satellites in low Earth orbit are becoming increasingly disorganized and adding space debris that threatens the infrastructure needed for weather forecasting and telecommunications. Meanwhile, the ISS is so crowded with two-decade-old experiments and equipment that new ones are running out of space; Cargo ships can’t empty it fast enough.
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Outpost CEO Jason Dunn told Space.com in December 2022, “I believe what we’re developing will basically eliminate space debris.” contract (opens in new tab) on 6 December to design a “cargo ferry” version of Outpost’s technology intended for ISS payload return.
Dunn pledged that the ferry would be ready before the ISS retires in 2030, in order to house smaller experiments that are usually completed within weeks of arriving at the massive complex. Larger payloads will still be sent home on conventional cargo ships like SpaceX’s Dragon, he said.
Dunn knows the ISS through his first major orbital venture, Made in Space, which he founded in 2010. The company is best known for co-creating the first 3D printer for the ISS. Ironically, the printer is still stuck in orbit waiting for a cargo ship slot, despite the Smithsonian Institution pledging to pick it up when it comes home.
Dunn said the Space Ferry project was born not only to return that kind of hardware, but also to deal with the ongoing problem of space launching costs and space debris. “As I became more involved in the space industry and my career, a few things bothered me… So much effort, so much money was being put into getting things off the planet, and hardly putting things back No attempt was made. Planet.”
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Traditionally, Dunn said, we continue to produce “single mission” items for space that then need to be brought back to Earth. This is slowly changing with the introduction of reusable rocket stages through Blue Origin and SpaceX, and satellite refueling of the early stage first demonstrated in orbit in 2020. But Dunn said more needs to be done, which is what inspired him to start Outpost.
“I’m a big believer in the idea of millions of people living and working in space one day, and if we don’t take a better path, that clearly won’t happen,” Dunn said.
The plan is to put the satellites into orbit with a small vehicle and then guide them through the atmosphere via a paraglider at subsonic speeds; This would allow an intact landing on Earth without the hardware burning up in the atmosphere. To strengthen the business case (and profit), the outpost would fly up the satellites during launch for deployment, then pick up older satellites in the same orbit for return to Earth.
“We robotically guided the paraglider and satellite to the landing site, and in the precision landing flight tests that we’ve done, we’ve been within 5 meters [16 feet] of our target,” Dunn said. By comparison, NASA’s successful test of a “flying saucer” inflatable Mars heat shield high in Earth’s atmosphere in November came down within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of its landing target.
So far Outpost’s ideas are in early design and testing, but the company is quickly scaling up to meet forecasted demand. Now with 14 employees from just two a year ago, Outpost raises $7 million in seed funding (opens in new tab) on the strength of its reusable satellite ventures last summer. And as new space stations may replace the ISS in the 2030s, Dunn says, the outpost could probably contribute to their cargo needs as well.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “why am i tall (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow him on Twitter @howlspace (opens in new tab), Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) Or Facebook (opens in new tab),