A system and method for scheduling a variable stayout distance when beam hopping, the method including providing an illumination area of a satellite and candidate beam centers disposed in the illumination area; measuring a respective scan angle from an antenna boresight to a respective beam center of the candidate beam centers; and determining a reuse factor k for each of the candidate beam centers, based on a proportion of the respective scan angle to a maximum scan angle. Each candidate beam center may be processed sequentially. Prior to adding each candidate beam center to a current beam center set, checking whether a candidate beam center meets the stayout distance criteria from all beam centers already in the beam center set.