The FCC's 5-year deorbit rule is a hard outer limit on how long a defunct low-Earth-orbit satellite may linger before it must come down. The requirement lives at 14 CFR 25.283(e), the end-of-life disposal section of the Commission's space-station rules, and it applies to spacecraft ending their mission in or passing through the LEO region below 2,000 km altitude that plan disposal through uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry. For those satellites, the regulation says disposal must be completed “as soon as practicable following end of mission, and no later than five years after the end of the mission.” The five-year clock is the operative number, and it replaced a non-binding 25-year guideline that U.S. and international debris-mitigation practice had used for decades.

The rule's force depends entirely on when the clock starts, and the regulation defines that moment precisely rather than leaving it to an operator's discretion. Under 25.283(e), “end of mission is defined as the time at which the individual spacecraft is no longer capable of conducting collision avoidance maneuvers.” For a satellite that never had maneuvering capability at all, the rule sets a different trigger: end of mission is “the point in which the individual spacecraft has completed its primary mission.” The distinction matters for constellation economics—a maneuverable satellite that retains thrust can keep its mission running and defer the start of the five-year window, while a non-maneuverable cubesat starts the clock the moment its primary work is done.

"For space stations ending their mission in or passing through the low-Earth orbit region below 2000 km altitude and planning disposal through uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry, disposal must be completed as soon as practicable following end of mission, and no later than five years after the end of the mission."— 14 CFR 25.283(e), source

How the rule fits the rest of 25.283

Section 25.283 is the FCC's full end-of-life disposal regime, and the five-year LEO standard is one part of it. The same section governs geostationary-orbit satellites separately: a GEO space station must, barring catastrophic failure, be relocated at end of life to a graveyard orbit with a perigee no lower than a formula-defined minimum—36,021 km plus a term scaled by the spacecraft's solar-radiation-pressure coefficient and area-to-mass ratio. The section also imposes a passivation requirement on all space stations: upon completing an authorized mission or relocation, a licensee must ensure, unless prevented by technical failures beyond its control, that stored energy sources on board are discharged by venting excess propellant, discharging batteries, relieving pressure vessels, or other appropriate measures. Passivation addresses the risk that a dead satellite explodes on orbit and fragments into a debris cloud.

The five-year LEO deadline is the part of 25.283 that changed most recently. The FCC adopted it in a 2022 Second Report and Order, and the Federal Register record reflects the rule's continuing maintenance—the eCFR authority note for the section lists the 2024 amendment at 89 FR 65223, published August 9, 2024, among the rule's revisions. The Commission's stated rationale, set out in the underlying orbital-debris orders, was that the prior 25-year disposal guideline was developed before the era of large LEO constellations and no longer matched an environment in which thousands of satellites operate in overlapping shells.

How GEO disposal differs from the LEO deadline

The contrast between the LEO and GEO halves of 25.283 illustrates why the five-year number applies only to part of the satellite population. Geostationary satellites sit roughly 36,000 km above the equator, far too high to re-enter the atmosphere on any practical timescale, so the rule disposes of them upward rather than downward. Section 25.283(a) requires a GEO space station, unless prevented by catastrophic failure, to be relocated at end of life to a graveyard orbit with a perigee at least “36,021 km + (1000·C R ·A/m)” above the Earth, where C R is the spacecraft's solar-radiation-pressure coefficient and A/m is its area-to-mass ratio. The formula raises the disposal altitude for lighter, larger-area spacecraft that are more perturbed by sunlight pressure. Section 25.283(d) adds that this minimum-perigee requirement does not apply to space stations launched before March 18, 2002, grandfathering older satellites that predate the rule.

The five-year LEO deadline, by contrast, works because low-orbit satellites can actually be brought down—atmospheric drag will pull them in, and the rule simply requires that the descent finish within five years of the mission's end. The two regimes share a goal, clearing spent hardware out of operational regions, but use opposite directions: graveyard the GEO satellites up, deorbit the LEO satellites down. Both, under 25.283(c), must also be passivated so a derelict spacecraft does not later explode and multiply into fragments.

What the rule does and does not reach

Two boundaries clarify the rule's scope. First, 25.283(e) addresses the timing of disposal for satellites using uncontrolled re-entry; it sets a deadline, not a method. Operators may dispose faster, and controlled re-entry to a targeted ocean area remains a separate option the Commission's broader debris framework contemplates. Second, the rule is an FCC licensing condition tied to spectrum authorization. It binds satellites the FCC licenses, including non-U.S. systems that seek U.S. market access through the agency's market-access process, but it operates through the Commission's authority over radio stations rather than as a standalone debris statute. A satellite's launch is licensed by the FAA and an imaging payload by NOAA; the disposal obligation rides on the FCC's space-station license.

For an operator, the practical reading is straightforward. From the moment a LEO satellite below 2,000 km can no longer maneuver to avoid collisions—or, lacking that capability, finishes its primary job—the five-year countdown to atmospheric disposal begins, and the spacecraft's stored energy must be passivated. The number that governs is five years, written into 25.283(e), and it is the standard against which every newly licensed U.S. LEO satellite's end-of-life plan is now measured.