Reply to post: Deorbit time

This drag sail could prevent spacecraft from turning into long-term orbiting junk. We spoke to its inventors ahead of launch

Tessier-Ashpool

Deorbit time

“At lower altitudes, deorbit could occur in days, while at higher altitudes it could take tens to hundreds of years”

I suspect that geostationary satellites, out at 36,000km, would stay up an awful lot longer than that. At that kind of altitude, space is an extremely hard vacuum.

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