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Old 17-April-2008, 02:46 AM
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The only way I think a solar sail could work is if you use it like a parachute to slow the junk down using the drag on the upper atmosphere. Then it could fold up and fire its ion engines to get back into a higher orbit. I think whatever acceleration you would get from the sail would be fairly small compared to the drag caused by the sail on the upper atmosphere.

Of course, that would only be useful if you're trying to bring something in low earth orbit down to be destroyed. The stuff that's farther out wouldn't really need to be adjusted since their orbits are stable but I guess it could be used if you're trying to move something farther away from the earth.
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