Breaking apart on reentry

During atmospheric reentry, peak heat fluxes and mechanical loads usually result in a satellite’s break-up at around 75 km up. Only after this this altitude will all the internal equipment exposed to the heat flux start ‘demising’ as well. But engineering a higher break-up altitude would imply that the internal equipment would be exposed to the heat flux for a longer time, greatly enhancing its overall demisability. Possible ways to ensure this include more meltable joints holding satellite panels together or the use of ‘shape memory alloys’ which shift shape with temperature. This is known as 'Design for Demise'.