| Project Detail |
Advancing the technological maturity of thermite-for-demise By the beginning of 2024, there were more than 28 000 satellites orbiting the planet. As these satellites age and are no longer useful, they are ‘decommissioned’, often by being pulled down into the Earth’s atmosphere where they burn. If too large, some components may arrive on the ground. Funded by the European Innovation Council, the THREAD project will investigate the use of exothermic reactions to support demise during atmospheric re-entry. The approach, called thermite-for-demise, uses onboard heat generation systems based on non-explosive thermites (mixtures of metal and metal oxide). THREAD aims to increase the maturity of the approach by optimising its properties, investigating its expected life cycle in space, and developing a strategy for use. This project develops a new method to manage the decommissioning of satellites through the use of on-board heat generation systems based on non-explosive thermite charges, called thermite-for-demise (T4D). Thermites are mixtures of metal and metal oxide which can undergo spontaneous exothermic reactions even in vacuum, according to composition and production. Pioneering projects have demonstrated that T4D may be used to damage space components and support their demise during atmospheric reentry. However, its real world application needs the filling of knowledge gaps and practical problems: (A) the powdered form is not the best way to obtain localized reliable heat release; (B) the expected life cycle in a space mission has never been considered; (C) a strategy for T4D use is not available. The project targets the maturation of T4D technology in three major steps. (1) New thermite-based composite materials granting thermite a structural consistency will be developed and their behavior characterized. Environmental stress tests will secure their use across satellite lifecycle. (2) With these building blocks, heat-generating shapes and devices will be developed, supported by the experience of a large spacecraft integrator. The heat transfer behavior of thermite-based objects will be modeled and validated under representative reentry conditions, in hypersonic wind tunnel. Results will support the update of system-level reentry simulation tools and the definition of application strategy, further validated on demise test in wind tunnel with hardware of representative or simplified geometry from the selected use-cases, supplied by a space company. (3) All previous outcomes will support a cost-benefit analysis for T4D industrial implementation and its long term evolution. The results of the project will demonstrate with new experiments and modeling approaches that T4D has the potential to become an engineering standard for the space community. |
