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The previous "de-orbing 25 years after mission completion" sound a deliberately unenforceable rule.

• mikepurvis 4y ago
  I expect that's less about having to reserve fuel or have a specific plan for it, and more that to get approval, you have to be able to plausibly show a model where the device will deorbit on its own within 25 years of no maintenance burns.
• rzimmerman 4y ago
  It was enforced during licensing. In order to obtain a license from the FCC (which is effectively required to launch a satellite, unless you never want to communicate with it), you had to prove it would either deorbit naturally in < 25 years or that you had a system to do so at the end of the mission. The rule was generally to have a plan and an ability to deorbit after 25 years. A lot of satellites fail in ways that prevent using a propulsion system.
• kobalsky 4y ago
  I'm not sure but I think has to do with parking the satellite in a lower orbit such that the atmospheric drag will force it to reenter within 25 years, not that the operator has 25 years to deorbit the satellite at some point. I think this has to do with the amount of fuel the need to save to reach the disposal orbit.