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by trothamel 1874 days ago
Re-entry is a bit of a feature, though - should a satellite be DOA, it will be in a low orbit and burn up faster.
2 comments

I wonder if they could use another satellite to sweep a DOA satellite. They all start in almost identical orbits, so unlike most orbital degree cleanup plans there aren't huge relative velocities to deal with or anything...

It would mean that 1 DOA satellite means bringing down 2, but that might be worth it if the DOA rate is low.

Absolutely, but for the ones that are not DOA, having more fuel on board means they can re-boot themselves for a longer time, thus staying up for longer and getting a longer service life per sat...