Comment Re:The orbit, itself (Score 2) 116
So the best thing here is to keep those geosync slots in use, and not chewing up an empty slot with a dead or useless satellite. I'll have to agree with what someone else said - that de-orbit should be a published option, as well.
De-orbiting from geosync is way to expensive to be an option (too high delta-V). What they use instead is the "graveyard orbit". At the end of operational life, the satellite just does some final burns to raise its orbit by a few hundred km, where it is no longer geosynchronous but also out of the way of the geosync orbit. Satellites launched into geosync are required to have this capability.