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Farewell, Gaia! Spacecraft operations come to an end (www.esa.int)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

we don’t want it to reactivate in the future and begin transmitting again if its solar panels find sunlight.

Why go to so much work to ensure it can never be turned on again? What harm does it do to move the satellite to a graveyard orbit and just leave it listening?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

My thought as well, seems short sighted. Bandwidth permits from ITU maybe? Risk that someone else could hijack it?

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