The French Space Agency CNES has issued a call for the development of a small capsule designed to collect data during a satellite’s reentry phase.
Under the French Space Operations Act, adopted in 2008, CNES developed DEBRISK, a tool designed to assess the survivability of debris from a fragmented satellite reentering Earth’s atmosphere. The software is made available to satellite operators to ensure their compliance with the act’s technical regulations.
In order to validate the models created by its DEBRISK tool, CNES has identified a need for a demonstration mission. While there are planned missions, like the European Space Agency’s DRACO mission, that will collect aerothermodynamic data during a satellite’s re-entry phase, CNES plans to “avoid dependence on existing projects” by developing its KLARA (Kit de mesures pour LA Rentrée Atmosphérique/Measurement Kit for Atmospheric Re-entry) capsule.
According to CNES, the capsule will need to be low cost, easily adaptable, capable of surviving the satellite’s orbital life (around five years), and remain operational during the reentry phase for long enough to transmit the data it has collected.
The call envisions the capsule being between 10 and 20 centimetres in diameter and weighing between one and three kilograms. It will be equipped with instruments to measure the altitude and attitude of the host satellite and monitor the temperature of different areas of the host satellite.
