launch to the International Space Station rescheduled for later this month. Of a more international note, there’s a new player emerging in the space industry. Launching this year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Finland will soon send its first science satellite, Foresail-1, into space.
“We are pushing the borders with platform technology,” he says. “We are looking [to] operate the satellite for at least five years and even beyond, which is unusual for such a small satellite.” One of Foresail-1’s technological goals is to demonstrate the usefulness of this plasma brake. The way the plasma brake works is it “increases the drag by using electromagnetic fields,” explains Prak, which by slowing it down, brings the satellite’s orbit close enough to Earth that it falls and eventually burns in the atmosphere.