Millennium Space experiment to demonstrate technology to rapidly deorbit satellites

Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems announced Dec. 7 that an experiment launched to space last month will show a small satellite can safely deorbit in about 45 days. Two Millennium Space small satellites flew Nov. 19 to low-Earth orbit on a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle from New Zealand. In the experiment named DragRacer, both satellites were ejected simultaneously. One has a deployable tether and other does not. Millennium Space predicts that the tethered spacecraft will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in 45 days while the untethered one could take more than seven years. More

(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 8)