ESA's Draco mission to watch a satellite burn up for science

ESA has greenlit the Draco Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object mission to deliberately reenter a small, instrumented satellite (about 150–200 kg) into Earth's atmosphere. Packed with around 200 sensors and four cameras, Draco will record temperatures, pressures, ablation products and other data as it burns up, with roughly a 20‑minute telemetry window before splashdown. The goal is to validate reentry models and advance “design for demise” concepts to fully disintegrate satellites, helping reduce debris and atmospheric pollution and guiding future demisable spacecraft by 2030.