An Italian solar sail, called Artica, has been opened in orbit on cubesat Alpha and its new technologies promise a new horizon also to reduce space junk. The cube-shaped nanosatellite was launched on July 13 from the European space base of Kourou, in French Guiana, on the occasion of the first flight of Vega C, the new generation of the Italian-European carrier Vega. Created by the Npc company of Imola, in the province of Bologna, specifically by the Spacemind space division, the Arctic system will allow small satellites in low orbit to perform de-orbiting at the end of their mission, that is to reduce the altitude and burn in contact with the higher layers of the atmosphere. “To date, according to data from the European Space Agency (ESA), there are about 130 million objects of various sizes in Earth orbit, including 20 thousand satellites. Limiting space junk is therefore becoming a real emergency for the safety of future missions. “observes Nicolò Benini, marketing manager of Npc Spacemind. “We are therefore thrilled – comments the manager – that, with the correct opening of its solar sail, the Arctic system has proven to be able to offer a simple, economical and sustainable solution to the problem of ‘space debris’ in low orbit”. – acronym for Aerodynamic Reentry Technology In Cubesat Application – was started in 2012 by Npc Spacemind and has already seen the launch of a first technology demonstrator on board the cubesat ‘Ursa Maior’ in June 2017. The new version of the system, which has been further perfected, it entered orbit last July aboard Alpha, the cubesat created by a group of innovative Italian start-ups led by the Roman company Arca Dynamics. The Alpha nanosatellite has the shape of a cube, with a side of 10 centimeters and a weight of 1.2 kilograms, while the sail has a surface of 2.1 square meters and is made of aluminized mylar. In low orbit the glider works like an air brake and reduces the altitude of the satellite until it burns in the earth’s atmosphere, while in the higher orbits the glider uses the pressure of solar radiation to change the satellite’s orbit. The European space surveillance system Eusst has confirmed that Alpha is flying at an altitude of 6 thousand kilometers and is visible from the ground thanks to the effects of the glider on its brightness and trajectory. On board the cubesat, there are also other scientific and technological experiments carried out by the National Research Council, Arca Dynamics, H4 Research and Apogeo Space. Alpha’s mission will be followed shortly by four cubesats, all made in Italy by Npc Spacemind and equipped with the sail for their de-orbiting at the end of the mission. The first, called DanteSat, will be transported aboard the International Space Station next October and from there released into space. The other three nanosatellites, called Futura 1, 2 and 3, will instead be launched in December by a SpaceX Falcon 9 vector. “The launch of the three cubesat Futura, in addition to validating some miniaturized electronic subsystems in space, will also have the purpose of testing our Sm Pod, a new high-performance deployer for cubesat, which will significantly reduce the time and costs of the release in orbit. . Thanks to our cubesats, the deployer and the sail for de-orbiting, our country will thus be able to offer innovative services to the world market of nano and microsatellites which is in great expansion “explains Benini.