graveyard orbit
Britishnoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In 2022, China’s Shijian-21 docked with a dead BeiDou satellite and dragged it to a graveyard orbit.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2025
The Shijian-21 was sent into geosynchronous orbit in January and moved a defunct BeiDou navigation satellite to “to a high graveyard orbit above GEO,” the report said.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 1, 2022
The purpose of another rendezvous would be to install a propulsion module for guiding the telescope’s plunge into the atmosphere or boosting it into a stable, high-altitude graveyard orbit.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 3, 2022
These include ensuring there is enough propellant at the end of a satellite's life so that it can be pulled out of the sky or at the very least pushed into a graveyard orbit.
From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2021
The company is developing add-on thrusters that can be equipped to a satellite, which, once defunct, could propel it into a graveyard orbit above GEO or pull it down into the atmosphere to burn up.
From Salon ● Nov. 11, 2021
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
