Technique for de-orbiting small debris from the near-earth space environment
NRL
System and method for inducing rapid reentry of orbital debris including determining a spatial extent of the orbital debris, and deploying dust to the orbital debris to enhance the drag on the orbital debris. Small objects with perigee above about 900 km where the debris lifetime can be centuries can be targeted for de-orbiting.
Inventors:
Ganguli, Gurudas; Chappie, Scott S.; Roudakov, Leonid I.; Crabtree, Christopher E.
Patent Number:
Technical domain:
Handling and Transportation
FIle Date:
2013-05-03
Grant Date:
2013-11-12
Grant time:
193 days
Grant time percentile rank:
3
Claim count percentile rank:
5
Citations percentile rank:
1
'Cited by' percentile rank:
1
Assignee:
US NAVY
