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Technical

Graveyard Orbit

A disposal orbit, typically a few hundred kilometres above the geostationary belt, where satellites are placed at end of life to clear the operational region.

A graveyard (or disposal) orbit is a region used to retire spacecraft that cannot practically be deorbited, most commonly for geostationary satellites. Operators raise the satellite a few hundred kilometres above the GEO belt and passivate it.

This protects the valuable and crowded geostationary ring from defunct objects. The required re-orbit altitude is defined by international guidelines and is a standard end-of-life obligation for GEO operators.