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> and they don't regularly and necessarily burn to ashes!

_In principle_, a VLEO satellite could stay up forever (or, well, realistically until the engine wore out).

Weather balloons also don't last forever.

There are atomic oxygen issues for VLEO sats, the front of the satellite slowly corrodes away from the impacts. They're longer lived than current balloons but mission lifetimes more than low single digit years aren't really feasible right now.

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