January 2025
HPS Space News
ADEO – Space Heritage
ADEO (Atmospheric Deorbit Sail Module) is the name for an entire product family of drag sails for satellites from the German space company HPS, Munich. They accelerate the disposal of satellites from space to a period of less than five years and thus fulfill the prerequisite for the satellite to receive approval for launch into space in the first place.
The sail is scalable and available in many variants from series production. ADEO-N is tailored to small satellite missions of 20-250 kg, while the ADEO-M and ADEO-L series are designed for larger missions of 100-700 kg and 500-1500 kg respectively. The ADEO-N series corresponds to a sail size of 5±2 m2, while ADEO-M covers areas of 15 ± 5 m2 and ADEO-L 25 m2 and more. However, smaller versions have also been available for a year, especially for cubesats, e.g. an ADEO-P for 1U-6U satellites (1-20 kg) and an ADEO-C for larger cubesats (5-50 kg). A total of five versions are currently available to order, all of which reliably dispose of satellites from LEO – including those from higher MEO orbits when combined with satellite’s onboard propulsion – within the required time frame. A corresponding configurator for selecting the perfectly suitable ADEO module is available for individual mission calculation (ADEO Online Configurator).
Now there is a short film about the production and testing of the product family, as well as ADEO’s heritage story:
Based on over ten years of development, HPS has successfully completed a series of missions up to “full burn” and has thus firmly established itself at the top of deorbit technologies at qualification level TRL 9.
2018: ADEO-N1 (“NABEO”) was launched on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket kick stage back in 2018, with Peter Beck himself (CEO RocketLab) even personally handling the sail. On this flight, the sail was unfurled just 90 minutes after the launch. Visual ground observations confirmed the successfully deployed sail and its performance.
2021: In June 2021, ADEO-N2 (“Show me your Wings”) was launched into space by the spacecraft carrier ION-003 of the Italian launch service provider D-Orbit, as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-2 mission. The successful deployment of the sail in December 2022 was recorded by the ION carrier’s on-board camera. The integrity of the sail after one year in orbit was confirmed, again by means of the onboard camera. On December 8, 2024, HPS received confirmation that ADEO-N2 had completed its mission with deployment of the dragsail at 506 km orbit altitude in a record time of just two years after the 210 kg satellite’s “end-of-business” with fireworks of success at 120 km orbit altitude, beating international rules and regulations by three full years.
Even NASA ranks the ADEO module from HPS as the number one automatic passive deorbit technology in view of the qualification and Flight Heritage.
ADEO is now a bestseller not only with European institutions and companies, but also in the fully commercial markets of the USA and Canada.
Highest qualification levels, proven reliability and flight heritage combined with scalability, availability and attractive pricing make the ADEO product family a highly visible beacon in the global field of deorbit systems for all satellites that must comply with the new 5-year deorbit requirement to obtain launch authorization.
Click here for the latest clip about ADEO
————————-
Video: © HPS GmbH, Munich, Germany, www.hps-gmbh.com
Production: Daniela Creutz, www.bluecirceproductions.com
————————-
Two HPS contributions on board the Transporter 12 mission on January 14, 2025
Even HPS has never done this before: two of the company’s products are on their way to a sun-synchronous orbit on a Falcon 9 mission. This has been made possible by the rideshare- version of the SpaceX rocket named “Transporter 12”.
On the one hand, the contributions from HPS relate to the highly innovative BANT-1 reflector antenna for Reflex Aerospace’s premiere satellite – see also the HPS news item “HPS congratulates Reflex Aerospace” from today, January 14.
On the other hand, a contribution from HPS itself is the premiere. For the first time, HPS Germany and HPS Romania have jointly prepared a flight hardware with the MLI insulation of the central radiator in such a way that the thermo-optical properties of the satellite are maintained even under the most adverse conditions in space.
The satellite is Sky Bee-1 and part of a thermal infrared constellation HiVE that provides highly accurate yet cost-effective daily temperature data of the world’s land surfaces with a resolution of 30 meters for the benefit of agriculture, urban and industrial environments. The HPS teams of both European countries warmly congratulate their client OHB on the launch success. The first flight model SkyBee-1 is being developed under the InCubed Programme, co-funded by the European Space Agency.
Space premiere also for the innovative BANT-1 reflector antenna from HPS
On January 14, 2025, “SIGI”, the first satellite from the NextSpace company Reflex Aerospace, Berlin/Munich, was launched on board a Falcon 9 – Rideshare Mission Transporter-12. “NextSpace” is the term legally reserved for exclusive use by Reflex to describe the new speed in the development, production and provision of space technology, coupled with innovative versatility as a leitmotif for the performance of the product.
To a large extent, this also applied to an essential element of the satellite not manufactured by Reflex: the core broadband reflector antenna developed by HPS from the medium-sized space technology company HPS GmbH (Munich, Germany) with a cavity-backed spiral antenna as an axial feed for a wide bandwidth and considerable gain – and all that from order to delivery in just 12 months.
HPS congratulates Reflex Aerospace on the first launch of one of its products and looks forward to working with them on further NextSpace challenges in space.
Pictures by SpaceX