Differential Drag Demonstration: A Post-Mission Experiment with the EO-1 Spacecraft

Differential drag is a technique for altering the semimajor axis, velocity, and along-track position of a spacecraft in low Earth orbit. It involves varying the spacecraft's cross-sectional area relative to its velocity direction by temporarily changing attitude and solar array angles, thus varying the amount of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft. The technique has recently been proposed and used by at least three satellite systems for initial separation of constellation spacecraft after launch, stationkeeping during the mission, and potentially for conjunction avoidance. Similarly, differential drag has been proposed as a control strategy for rendezvous, removing the need for active propulsion. In theory, some operational missions that lack propulsion capability could use this approach for conjunction avoidance, though options are typically constrained for spacecraft that are already in orbit. Shortly before the spacecraft was decommissioned, an experiment was performed using NASA's EO-1 spacecraft in order to demonstrate differential drag on an operational spacecraft in orbit, and discover some of the effects differential drag might manifest. EO-1 was not designed to maintain off-nominal orientations for long periods, and as a result the team experienced unanticipated challenges during the experiment. This paper will discuss operations limitations identified before the experiment, as well as those discovered during the experiment. The effective displacement that resulted from increasing the drag area for 39 hours will be compared to predictions as well as the expected position if the spacecraft maintained nominal operations. A hypothetical scenario will also be examined, studying the relative risks of maintaining an operational spacecraft bus in order to maintain the near-maximum drag area orientation and hasten reentry.