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Re:DirecTV races to decommission broken satellite before it ... by 0xffff2 on Friday January 24, 2020 @03:14PM (#22141996)
Geostationary satellites are in fact in a ring around the equator. No other orbit would keep them stationary in the sky.

Geosynchronous orbits are orbits at the same altitude, but not necessarily aligned with the equator. Most of what I know about orbital mechanics I learned from Kerbal Space Program, but given that it's very expensive to change orbital inclination, I would be shocked if geosynchronous satellites were returned to a flat inclination before being disposed of.

Re:DirecTV races to decommission broken satellite before it ... by outworlder on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:15PM (#22144197)
KSP is a very good approximation for most types of orbits we care about, including this case. Anything not involving N-body, like Lagrange points.