Among the approaches to the proposed mitigation and remediation of the spacedebris problem is the de-orbiting of objects in low Earth orbit throughirradiation by ground-based high-intensity pulsed lasers. Laser ablation of athin surface layer causes target recoil, resulting in the depletion of orbitalangular momentum and accelerated atmospheric re-entry. However, both themagnitude and direction of the recoil are shape dependent, a feature of thelaser-based remediation concept that has received little attention. Since thedevelopment of a predictive capability is desirable, we have investigated thedynamical response to ablation of objects comprising a variety of shapes. Wederive and demonstrate a simple analytical technique for calculating theablation-driven transfer of linear momentum, emphasizing cases for which therecoil is not exclusively parallel to the incident beam. For the purposes ofcomparison and contrast, we examine one case of momentum transfer in thelow-intensity regime, where photon pressure is the dominant momentum transfermechanism, showing that shape and orientation effects influence the targetresponse in a similar, but not identical, manner. We address the relatedproblem of target spin and, by way of a few simple examples, show how ablationcan alter the spin state of a target, which often has a pronounced effect onthe recoil dynamics.
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