Safe and efficient de-orbit of space junk without making the problem worse
Global Aerospace Corporation (GAC) announced that Dr. Kristin L. Gates will present a paper on de-orbiting space junk at the August 2 Artificial and Natural Space Debris session of the AIAA Astrodynamics Specialists Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Gates will describe GAC's Gossamer Orbit Lowering Device (GOLD) for safe and efficient removal from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) of dangerous space objects. The patented GOLD system concept uses a very large ultra thin balloon envelope to increase the aerodynamic drag by a factor of several hundred. This will cause the space junk to enter the earth's atmosphere quickly and burn up. It will reduce the natural orbit decay of some objects from centuries to months. The computer-generated figure illustrates a GOLD system de-orbiting a large scientific observatory.