English

Verb

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

1. (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.

2. (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, 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, page 251

     Viktor is a friend of mine," she says. "He tells me that he has had strange dreams since Mir deorbited."

Derived terms

• deorbit burn

Anagrams

• debitor
• orbited