The Realities of

Reentry
Disposal
Prepared by: Engr. Donnah Elaine C. Jurado
 What happens to satellites when
they are no longer needed?
Two things can happen to old satellites: For the closer satellites,
engineers will use its last bit of fuel to slow it down so it will fall
out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. Further satellites are
instead sent even farther away from Earth.
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Satellite Reentry
Each day satellites, rocket
stages or fragments
thereof reenter the denser
layers of the atmosphere,
where they usually burn
up.
On average, a total of between 200-400 tracked objects enter Earth's
atmosphere every year.
Shortly before reentry, at about 120 km
altitude, spacecraft have speeds of
typically 28 000 km/h.
These reentries can often look like
shooting stars (meteors) with a bright
central body followed by a long,
dazzling tail and often break into
numerous fragments.
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Why Satellites
return to Earth?
The closer satellites are to Earth the more likely it
is that they will run into traces of Earth's
atmosphere which create drag. The drag decays
the satellite's orbit and causes it to fall back
towards Earth
Most satellites don't come back to Earth at all. Most
of them burn to a crisp before they get anywhere near
the ground.

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 ￮ A few satellites, like China's
“ Shijian-10, are designed to
return to Earth, because they
have collected samples that
scientists want to study.

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 Space Junk
Space junk, or space debris, is any piece of
machinery or debris left by humans in space. It
can refer to big objects such as dead satellites that
have failed or been left in orbit at the end of their
mission.
Space Junk
Debris in space, which has
been accruing since the
1950s, is a well-
documented problem.
Most space junk comes from three
countries: Russia, the U.S. and
China.
According to NASA, debris
in orbits below 600
kilometres will fall back to
Earth within several
years, but above 1,000
kilometres it will continue
circling the Earth for a
century or more.

While there are about 2,000 active satellites orbiting Earth at the moment, there
are also 3,000 dead ones littering space. What's more, there are around 34,000
pieces of space junk bigger than 10 centimetres in size. 7
Government authorities are in the process of developing
regulations to mitigate the collision risk, which if unchecked could
leave various altitude ranges hazardous for satellite
operation

NASA has developed guidelines for post-mission

disposal of space structures.2 These guidelines state
that, for vehicles in or passing through low Earth
orbit, orbital lifetime should be limited to 25 years.

The ESA (European Space Agency) recommends

similar guidelines in its Space Debris Mitigation
Handbook.

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NTRY DISPOSAL MECHANISMS

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There are two primary means for disposing of
spacecraft via reentry breakup:

Disposal by Disposal by actually

deorbiting the
orbit decay. spacecraft to a known
location.

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• Disposal by actually deorbiting the
spacecraft to a known location.
The easiest method of Some spacecraft plan PERIGEE- the point
deorbiting a satellite is to use onboard electric in the orbit of the
to lower the perigee propulsion systems to moon or a satellite at
altitude such that lower perigee altitude. which it is nearest to
atmospheric drag the earth.
These low-thrust
causes the satellite’s
motors, however, do APOGEE- the point
orbit to decay, and the
not provide sufficient farthest from a planet
spacecraft to reenter in
impulse to allow or a satellite (such as
a random fashion.
targeting the the moon) reached by
spacecraft to a specific an object orbiting it
reentry point.

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Disposal by actually deorbiting
the spacecraft to a known
location.
A major characteristic of this disposal method
is the lack of knowledge of exactly where on
Earth the object will actually come down.

Even during the last orbits, predicting the

exact orbital revolution in which reentry
occurs is difficult, with prediction uncertainty
roughly 10% of the remaining lifetime.7

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Disposal by actually deorbiting
the spacecraft to a known
location.
Disposal by controlled deorbit- provides certainty in the
impact location by targeting the spacecraft to a safe area,
generally a broad ocean area, to minimize the hazard to
people and property.

Deorbit- to depart deliberately from orbit, usually to enter a

descent phase. to cause to deliberately depart from orbit.

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• Controlled deorbits are most desirable
when:
(1) the mass of the (2) the satellite (3) the satellite
satellite is so large that contains hazardous contains sensitive
3 the number of materials, such as components, and
surviving debris radioactive fuel used recovery of these is
objects is thought to in a radioisotope not desirable.
pose an unacceptable thermal generator
risk to life and
property

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 Assessing the
Space Shuttle

Important
part of
planning such
Assessing the
hazard posed
to Mir
deorbits Assessing the
to active
spacecraft that
Space Station
may be using this
area of space

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 Recovered
Debris
Debris-the remains of something broken down or destroyed
Space Debris- encompasses both natural meteoroid and
artificial (human-made) orbital debris.
 Skylab Reentry
Skylab reentered the
Earth’s atmosphere on
July 12, 1979 and
scattered its debris over Prior to reentry, NASA modulated Skylab’s
western Australia. drag via vehicle attitude changes in an
attempt to place the impact footprint in the
Atlantic or Indian Oceans. Near the time of
Skylab- was the first United reentry, incorrect breakup altitude prediction,
States space station, launched
by NASA, occupied for about
and uncertainties in the ballistic coefficient
24 weeks between May 1973 and atmospheric density caused the impact
and February 1974. area to shift downrange to Australia.

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 Cosmos 954
A Soviet reactor-powered
radar ocean
reconnaissance satellite
(RORSAT), known as It scattered radioactive debris over an area of
Cosmos 954. approximately 124,000 km2 (36,150 nmi2 )
and recovered radioactive material using the
Operation Morning Light.
Reentered the Earth’s
atmosphere and landed in It was established that the Cosmos 954
northern Canada on January reactor had partially disintegrated before
24, 1978. impact.11 An estimated 3,500 particles
having a total weight of 65 kg were retrieved.

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 Delta II Second Stage
Delta II was an
expendable launch
system, originally
designed and built by
McDonnell Douglas.
Delta II second-stage rocket
body reentered the Earth’s
atmosphere on January 22,
1997
The 500 LB stainless-steel propellant tank
landed close to a farmer’s house in
Georgetown, Texas (Figure 7), and a titanium
helium-pressurization sphere impacted near
Seguin, Texas, nearly 161 km (100 miles)
away.
Results of the analysis indicated that the
aluminum structure attached to the tank
melted, and residual molten aluminum
combined with the steel in the tank sample to
lower the melting temperature in various
regions.
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Thanks!

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