This is already a thing for VLEO satellites. Look up ABEP/ASEP. I don’t think any have flown successfully yet, but they’ve been the holy grail of VLEO propulsive maintenance the past ~8 years…

It means you can run a satellite at 200km or possibly lower so you need ~1/3 the angular resolution of a LEO bird for whatever sensing task or ~10db less power/antenna for comms.

Atomic oxygen exists though…IYKYK