
Ibadan, 4 July 2024.- Space-related technologies should be clean and sustainable to ensure access to space will remain possible for future generations. This topic, which is currently a top priority of space policy, has led to several technical solutions which are now available on the market, with the ADEO deorbit system from HPS leading the way. With recognition even from NASA, the ADEO dragsails ensure already before launch that satellites will not turn into space debris at the „end-of-business“. Instead, they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
The European Space Agency (ESA), as well as its national counterpart DLR and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, has consistently supported the twelve years of development of this product by HPS. The sharp increase in demand from customers, particularly in the CubeSat and SmallSat sector from Europe, but also from North America and even Asia, is because both ESA, for European launches, and the FCC, for American launches, now demand on-board systems to deorbit a satellite in just 5 years instead of the previous 25 years. Also, SpaceX confirms that no more satellites will be launched without complying with this requirement.
With the ADEO variants “Pico”, “Cube”, “Nano”, “Medium” and “Large”, HPS meets the market demand for all sizes of LEO satellites in orbits between 300 and 900 kilometers. All variants are already in production, with manufacturing at the HPS production sites in Munich, Germany and Bucharest, Romania, closely working together. Nevertheless, HPS and the technical ADEO experts at ESA have identified some optimization and expansion opportunities to urgently increase the pace of the series production, in response to the increasing price pressure of the New Space scene. The company is now raising the necessary funds to implement these opportunities in the short term, using co-financing of 1.2 million euros signed by ESA on June 28, 2024.
HPS CEO Ernst K. Pfeiffer: “As a company, we are very happy with the trust and continuous support from the European Space Agency, and therefore indirectly also from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs. However, this is at least as much a reason for joy for all those who, thanks to its technology programs such as GSTP, would like to see Europe in a leading role in the development of components for space technology and -transport, especially in the commercially so important LEO and MEO supplier market.”