Farewell, Aeolus: Doomed ESA weather sat reenters atmosphere over Antarctica

The European Space Agency's Aeolus weather satellite has reentered Earth's atmosphere after engineers sent their final commands to destroy the hardware. The machine, or whatever remains of it, was expected to crash into the Atlantic Ocean. Named after the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology, the bird had operated for nearly …

[The Spider]

Penguins???

Antarctica??? Won't somebody please think of the penguins???

[Sir Sham Cad]

Re: Penguins???

The Penguins now have Space Technology. We should be afraid.

[Dinanziame]

Re: Penguins???

Damnit, I wanted to make that joke... Er...

The fools! They'll punch a hike through the ozone layer!!

[Michael Hoffmann]

The rebels are there!

Sounds like the Imperial probe crashing on Hoth!

Next thing, some poor dude checking the wreckage gets assaulted by a Wampa.

[Timbo]

Surely ALL satellites...

...should have a built-in mechanism to allow them to either:

a) be de-orbited safely,

or

b) use some remaining fuel, so that the satellite is directed to "skip" off the Earths atmosphere (which might have happened to any returning Apollo Command capsule if it got its telemetry wrong) and hence go off into the darkness of space, never to be seen again?

Otherwise, I think a few older, retired astronauts (aka Space Cowboys) can be launched into orbit and strap PAMs (Payload Assist Modules) onto redundant tech and then said satellites can be sent off into the void?