Low-cost debris deorbiting plus planetary protection
- Aeronautics and Aerospace Open Access Journal
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Peter J Schubert
Abstract
Space debris can be deorbited by a coating of volatile material that evaporates in sunlight. Consider a roque CubeSat that gets splashed with black gel while on the night side of its orbit. As it emerges into the rays of the Sun, kinetic evaporation provides a retro force relative to the orbital velocity, causing speed to diminish.
Keywords
orbital debris, Kessler syndrome, space junk, evaporative gels