[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Rohan has submitted this question that needs answering.

"Can a mandatory thruster be installed into every machine or satellite launched into orbit, and would they help these objects to re enter the atmosphere and burn up?"

Discuss your findings in the comments below...

[evan_au]

NASA has some national guidelines which call for satellites to be deorbited within 25 years of their end of life.
- This happens naturally for satellites in Low Earth Orbit, as they are brought down by friction with the fringes of Earth's atmosphere
- For satellites in Geosynchronous orbit, it is too far to bring them back to Earth, so there is a nominated "parking" orbit where they are moved at end of life.
- For satellites in intermediate orbits, they need to have enough fuel left at end of life to make them safe. This is a heavy weight penalty on new satellites.
- There are very many old satellites that were launched before these guidelines were adopted, which will be a long-term hazard for future space missions
- There are some plans to design a garbage collector for old satellites, but its not an easy task, due to the high velocities of orbiting satellites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#National_and_international_regulation

There is another use for thruster fuel: Satellites like the Hubble Space telescope point at targets to be imaged using onboard gyroscopes (Reaction Wheels). However, due to friction, solar wind, etc, these Reaction Wheels end up going too fast or too slow. So controllers fire some low-power thrusters that lets them change the reaction wheel speed into the normal range.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wheel