In classical mechanics, dissipative forces are typically regarded as having a stabilizing effect. However, this is not always the case as the folks behind the first satellite launched by the United States Explorer I found out. To quote from the linked wikipedia article

Explorer 1 changed rotation axis after launch. The elongated body of the spacecraft had been designed to spin about its long (least-inertia) axis but refused to do so, and instead started precessing due to energy dissipation from flexible structural elements. Later it was understood that on general grounds, the body ends up in the spin state that minimizes the kinetic rotational energy for a fixed angular momentum (this being the maximal-inertia axis). This motivated the first further development of the Eulerian theory of rigid body dynamics after nearly 200 years—to address this kind of momentum-preserving energy dissipation.

In short, the satellite ended up rotating like a windmill blade because of a counterintuitive phenomena known as dissipation-induced instabilities; for a review article on this see

Krechetnikov, R.; Marsden, J. E., Dissipation-induced instabilities in finite dimensions, Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, No. 2, 519-553 (2007). ZBL1205.70002.

In classical mechanics, dissipative forces are typically regarded as having a stabilizing effect. However, this is not always the case as the folks behind the first satellite launched by the United States Explorer I found out. To quote from the linked wikipedia article

Explorer 1 changed rotation axis after launch. The elongated body of the spacecraft had been designed to spin about its long (least-inertia) axis but refused to do so, and instead started precessing due to energy dissipation from flexible structural elements. Later it was understood that on general grounds, the body ends up in the spin state that minimizes the kinetic rotational energy for a fixed angular momentum (this being the maximal-inertia axis). This motivated the first further development of the Eulerian theory of rigid body dynamics after nearly 200 years—to address this kind of momentum-preserving energy dissipation.

In short, the satellite ended up rotating like a windmill blade because of a counterintuitive phenomenon known as dissipation-induced instabilities; for a review article on this see

Krechetnikov, R.; Marsden, J. E., Dissipation-induced instabilities in finite dimensions, Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, No. 2, 519-553 (2007). ZBL1205.70002.