> It's not at all standard practice to deliberately dispose of satellites this way (SpaceX is a major outlier), and wasn't even on the radar in the 1990's, when

> It's not at all standard practice to deliberately dispose of satellites this way (SpaceX is a major outlier), and wasn't even on the radar in the 1990's, when this satellite was being built. tbf it is now a standard practice (quite literally: it's part of ISO24113) for satellites in LEO to lower the orbit to allow reentry via natural orbital decay within 5 years or less (recently reduced from 25 years or less). Your average CubeSat launched into the lower reaches achieves this naturally through atmospheric drag without propulsion, but anyone sticking their satellite at 700km needs propulsion and sufficient total impulse to be able to conduct a deorbiting mission at end of life. But yeah, certainly wasn't in the 1990s when congestion of LEO wasn't a consideration