Maintaining a satellite means expenses. If the funding is cut, the organisation and the people maintaining the satellites and the associated ground infrastructure won’t get paid for it. Most of us aren’t financially secure enough to do voluntary work as a day job.
Selling them to a different agency would mean that the buyer would also have to allocate resources to maintaining them. Not something that happens at any relevant timescales and it would be away from something else. And transferring the knowledge and skills would be a training operation in its own right.
or make some money by selling those satellites to say ESA. They might even be able to provide some jobs.
Maintaining a satellite means expenses. If the funding is cut, the organisation and the people maintaining the satellites and the associated ground infrastructure won’t get paid for it. Most of us aren’t financially secure enough to do voluntary work as a day job.
Selling them to a different agency would mean that the buyer would also have to allocate resources to maintaining them. Not something that happens at any relevant timescales and it would be away from something else. And transferring the knowledge and skills would be a training operation in its own right.