News
Vestigo Makes Its First Sale!
February 22, 2025
Vestigo Aerospace has received its first commercial order for a SpinnakerTM dragsail, with unit delivery planned later this year. “This is an important milestone for Vestigo, and a sign of things to come,” said Dave Spencer, Founder and CEO of Vestigo Aerospace, Inc. “The Spinnaker product line meets a growing need for deorbit technology within the satellite industry, and our focus is on reliability and ease of integration for our customers.”
The Spinnaker product line of dragsails provides a low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) approach to meeting end-of-mission deorbit requirements. The FCC’s “5-year deorbit rule” mandates that U.S.-licensed satellites and non-U.S. licensed satellites with U.S. market access operating in low-Earth orbit must deorbit no more than five years after their end-of-mission.
The Spinnaker design enables dragsail deployment via command from the host vehicle or autonomously based upon a stored deployment time, providing deorbit capability even if the host vehicle is inoperative. The result is a deorbit system with a higher reliability than the use of on-board propulsion and elimination of the need to deorbit the host vehicle prior to the end of its useful life. This passive deorbit approach preserves the utility of high-value orbits at a fraction of the cost of active debris removal.
Spinnaker dragsails offer straightforward integration with the host vehicle, with a simple bolt-on mechanical interface and a single connector for communications and power. Radiation-hardened electronics and life-tested batteries are employed to ensure reliable deployment after five years on-orbit. The CORIN XLSTM sail material is a clear, nonreflective polyimide that is designed to withstand the on-orbit environment, including degradation due to atomic oxygen.
The Spinnaker unit sold is the S2 configuration, designed for the deorbit of small satellites up to 180 kg in mass. S2 has 2 m long booms, with a deployed frontal area of 8.6 square meters. The Spinnaker product line of dragsails includes the CubeSat-class Spinnaker-Micro, Spinnaker for smallsats, and Spinnaker-Max for larger satellites and launch vehicle stages. Customers seeking deorbit technology can utilize the Deorbit Calculator on the Vestigo Aerospace website (www.vestigoaerospace.com) to determine which Spinnaker configuration best fits their application.
Vibration Testing of Spinnaker Units at Maverick Space Systems, August 2024.
