For every satellite you place on it, you can move 1 UFO to any other space on the board.
That doesn't seem like a big deal, but once you have 1 continent fallen off into orange...you could just funnel all your excess UFOs to that continent each turn, stopping them from destroying any interceptors, or raising panic in other continents.
A fully panicked country cannot become more panicked after all.
(And from a Commander's perspective...that panick country has withdrawn funding--you won't ever get it back, so f- them! )