The European Space Agency has announced that its Draco mission has passed its Critical Design Review, clearing it to enter full-scale manufacturing, integration and testing ahead of its planned launch in 2027. With the Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object (Draco) mission, ESA aims to gather data from inside a satellite as it breaks apart during atmospheric reentry. Once launched in 2027, Draco will be placed on a destructive reentry trajectory by its launch vehicle’s upper stage at an altitude of approximately 1,000 kilometres. Approximately 12 hours after liftoff, the spacecraft will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, with its nearly 200 onboard sensors and four cameras recording its fiery demise and storing the resulting data inside the 40-centimetre reentry capsule.