No idea if anyone has done anything to make this more than an idea, but if you want to de-orbit someone else’s satellite safely you could use a laser broom. Whe you vaporise stuff with a laser, the material that ablates off of the object imparts a bit of thrust to that object. This means that zapping a satellite with a laser can potentially slow it down just like pushing it with a rocket. It also has the benefit of being useable on any other troublesome debris, and it can be reused between jobs (assuming you solved the engineering challenges of Big Space Laser)
No idea if anyone has done anything to make this more than an idea, but if you want to de-orbit someone else’s satellite safely you could use a laser broom. Whe you vaporise stuff with a laser, the material that ablates off of the object imparts a bit of thrust to that object. This means that zapping a satellite with a laser can potentially slow it down just like pushing it with a rocket. It also has the benefit of being useable on any other troublesome debris, and it can be reused between jobs (assuming you solved the engineering challenges of Big Space Laser)