Timeline for How hard do you have to throw something off the ISS to make it deorbit?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 25, 2018 at 6:16 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Jun 22, 2018 at 9:48 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackSpaceExp/status/1010097202100953089 | ||
| Jun 21, 2018 at 23:02 | comment | added | SF. | @Bananenaffe: Reaction mass of 1kg at 12% of speed of light will give it the 130km periapsis; 34% of speed of light for a lithobraking trajectory that neglects air resistance. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 20:10 | comment | added | user23164 | @Ray that would be a great though experiment! | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 19:49 | comment | added | Ray | I initially interpreted the title as "How hard do you have to throw something off the ISS to make the ISS deorbit?" | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 19:18 | comment | added | SF. | To enter an orbit with 130km periapsis, which should be plenty enough to deorbit in couple hours at most, you'd need about 87m/s retrograde. OTOH, I wonder if a diagonal vector wouldn't be better: by raising apogee you drop perigee. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 18:36 | answer | added | BenjaminF | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 16:50 | answer | added | uhoh | timeline score: 22 | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 16:10 | comment | added | Russell Borogove | Related: space.stackexchange.com/questions/12011/… | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 16:01 | comment | added | Dan Pichelman | Possibly related: How long does trash jettisoned by hand from the ISS fall before burning up on reentry? | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 15:12 | answer | added | user3715778 | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 14:45 | comment | added | Uwe | The velocity of a circular orbit with a height of 400 km is 7.6732 km/s, with 380 km it is 7.6846 km/s. About 11 m/s difference, but not a deorbit maneuver. See the answers to these questions about the ISS orbit decay: 1, 2. If we use the 3 km height loss per month and the 15 month for a deorbit of these answers, 20 km less height will result in 7 months for deorbit of the pump instead of 15. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 14:43 | comment | added | Organic Marble | Those pumps have been returned for failure analysis before. Don't know about this specific case. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 14:09 | comment | added | Steve Linton | Of course it depends how quickly you want it to deorbit If you don't mind waiting a few months, you could just leave it outside the hatch. It will get left behind by station reboosts and (depending on its shape, size and mass) eventually deorbit. If you want to do it more quickly, you need to lower the perigee of the object enough that it experiences greater drag. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 14:00 | comment | added | user23164 | @peterh I know, it's more of a hypothetical question :) | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:59 | comment | added | peterh | No, most likely they brought back with themselves inside, and then they will send it back with the next soyuz (not in the landing unit, but in the part for the waste, to burn on reentry). Producing space waste intentionally is a very serious thing. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:59 | comment | added | Jack | There are lots of answers here that cover this topic well - here and over on Physics SE. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:57 | comment | added | Jack | @Uwe yes, but the ISS needs constant boosts to prevent deorbiting, so those 10-20m/s will make a significant difference to the deorbit time. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:50 | comment | added | Uwe | Throwing a thing as hard as you could will be about 10 or 20 m/s, that is nothing compared to 8000 m/s. | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:34 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:59 | |||||
| Jun 21, 2018 at 13:30 | history | asked | user23164 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |