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It very much depends upon what "deep space" means to you: * escape from the solar system altogether? That requires a big change in velocity, about half as much
by thombat 5y ago
It very much depends upon what "deep space" means to you:
* escape from the solar system altogether? That requires a big change in velocity, about half as much again as what it took to get to its current orbit.
* chuck it into the sun? needs more change than escaping the solar system
* or just a different orbit to the current one with less chance of being inconvenient? then you may as well leave it where it is - there are already a bunch of Earth Trojan asteroids around the Lagrange points which pose a similar likelihood of becoming inconvenient and being much bigger pose a greater hazard.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> It very much depends upon what "deep space" means to you: In this case "outside of the Earth-moon system" is what I mean. As you say, other changes such as out of solar system or into sun will require massive changes in velocity. In most cases "out of their original Low Earth orbit" is a good definition, but unusually, JWST isn't in LEO to start with. Most satellites can be easily or no-cost de-orbited (chuck it into the earth's atmosphere, allow the orbit to decay until same) from LEO, but with the JWST, I would guess that that would also be expensive.