  A concept for forced reentry of small orbital debris with characteristic
dimension ~ 10 cm from the highly populated sun synchronous orbit by injecting
micron scale dust grains to artificially enhance drag is discussed. The drag
enhancement is most effective when dust grains counter rotate with respect to
the debris resulting in hypervelocity dust/debris impacts. While the natural
drag on small debris with ballistic coefficient ~ 5 kg/m2 in orbits with
perigee above 900 km is negligible, it is sufficient to decay the orbit of the
injected dust grains at a significant rate. This offers a unique opportunity to
synchronize the rates of descent of the dust and debris to create a sweeping
(snow-plow-like) effect on the debris by a descending narrow dust layer. The
dust density necessary to de-orbit small debris is sufficiently low such that
the orbits of active satellites which have larger ballistic coefficients are
minimally affected. If deemed necessary, contact of the injected dust with
active satellites may be avoided by maneuvering the satellite around the narrow
dust layer.
