European Space Agency

So Gaia relies on maintaining very accurate pointing at the stars while measuring their position. For this purpose it uses special cold gas (Nitrogen) thrusters with very low flow noise. These cold gas tanks are now empty and Gaia simply cannot continue to operate.

Sniff, our most successful scientific Spacecraft by publications. The new Voyage 2050 programme certainly provides science topics that could lead to a worthy successor.

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?