deorbit

English edit

Etymology edit

Verb edit

deorbit (third-person singular simple present deorbits, present participle deorbiting, simple past and past participle deorbited)

(transitive) To cause to leave orbit.
- 1996, DIANE Publishing Company, Intelligence Threat Handbook
  The principal improvements in the systems are the ability to return film canisters without deorbiting the spacecraft, and the extension of orbital […]
- 1998, Curtis Peebles, High Frontier: The U.S. Air Force & the Military Space Program - Page 59
  First, an orbiting weapon required elaborate spacecraft systems, such as retro-rockets to deorbit it, others to guide it, and still others to arm it.
- 2007, U.S. Government, Proposed fiscal year 2008 budget request for the Department of the Interior ... - Page 83
  […] process will be initiated and over approximately one year the satellites will be maneuvered into an orbit that will eventually safely deorbit them.
(intransitive) Of an orbiting object, such as a satellite, to leave orbit.
- 1986, Gloria W. Heath, ed., Space Safety and Rescue, 1984-1985: Proceedings of Symposia, page 62
  The Gemini emergency occurred when Gemini 8 deorbited and landed in the Northern Pacific 1000 miles south of Japan.
- 2001, Rex Hall, David Shayler, The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights‎^[1], page 192:
  Vostok 3 deorbited first, at 09.24 MT on 15 August, followed six minutes later by Vostok 4.
- 2002, Dan Simmons, “The End of Gravity”, in Worlds Enough & Time: Five Tales of Speculative Fiction‎^[2], page 251:
  Viktor is a friend of mine," she says. "He tells me that he has had strange dreams since Mir deorbited."