Characterizing solar cycle influence on long-term orbital deterioration of low-earth orbiting space debris
Tarun Kumar Pant
The rapid increase in space debris poses a major threat to sustainable space operations and underscores the importance of understanding long-term drivers of orbital decay. Because debris objects do not perform station-keeping maneuvers, their orbital evolution directly reflects variations in thermospheric density, unlike that of operational satellites. This makes space debris an effective natural testbed for examining the long-term influence of solar activity on atmospheric drag. This study anal