IMAGINE the outrage if drivers abandoned their cars on city streets after they ran out of fuel. Something similar is happening to defunct satellites in the geostationary ring some 35,800 kilometres above the Earth.
Left to orbit up there for ever, dead satellites are cluttering up a prime piece of real estate. Unless satellite operators clean up their act, newer spacecraft face the prospect of colliding with the orbiting junk.
Satellites in geostationary orbit revolve above the equator in the same direction and with the same period as the rotation of the Earth and so appear stationary relative to…
