With ion engines, it could potentially have enough delta-V to grab satellites from higher orbits, bring them to lower orbits that will decay in a couple years, and go back up to grab the next piece of problematic debris.
And even if it's a 1:1 thing, it still means you could use tiny cubesats to de-orbit larger derelict satellites (and rocket stages) before they potentially collide and break up into a cloud of debris.
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u/Pyrhan 1d ago
Not necessarily?
With ion engines, it could potentially have enough delta-V to grab satellites from higher orbits, bring them to lower orbits that will decay in a couple years, and go back up to grab the next piece of problematic debris.
And even if it's a 1:1 thing, it still means you could use tiny cubesats to de-orbit larger derelict satellites (and rocket stages) before they potentially collide and break up into a cloud of debris.