I disagree. Certainly, there's no "arbitrary" maneuvers, "set course", etc. But surveillance satellites will carry maneuvering propellant for a number of reason

I disagree. Certainly, there's no "arbitrary" maneuvers, "set course", etc. But surveillance satellites will carry maneuvering propellant for a number of reasons: - Station keeping (as you listed) to maintain altitude. LEO satellites will be affected by atmospheric drag. - Assignments - Radar and imagery satellites cannot view everything via a change in rotation alone, and orbital adjustments can be made to the inclination and eccentricity in order to produce an ground track over a target that it didn't follow before. the importance of the target must justify the expenditure in fuel. - Defense - ASATs are a real concern, consisting either of missiles or another satellite steered onto an intercept. Placing one object deliberately onto the path of another is hard enough, surveillance and military satellites will carry propulsion to perform evasion (again, eccentricity, inclination, or altitude adjustments) and mess up a solution. There are no satellites (to my knowladge) that are carrying anything approaching the delta-v required to break orbit, but radical changes in orbit are feasible, and especially for surveillance and reconnaissance satellites, essential.