Starlink’s got company — and Earth’s orbit is getting crowded

On the evening of April 28, Amazon began her latest project for Spacex Starlink: the first launch of its project Kuper Satellites. With 27 satellites now in orbit around the Earth, Amazon joins an increasing number of companies that work to place more than 1,000 satellites in space to create a huge constellation. With all these things in orbit, the risk of overcrowding increases, and if any of these things is a collision, the results may be disastrous.

Aside from Amazon and Spacex, the UK -based OneWeb, which merged with the French satellite Eletelsat in 2023, has its own constellation, and there are many planned Chinese companies as well. There is a constellation of the Mega forces backed by the Chinese government, which began launching last year but is still veiled in secrecy, as well as the Qianfan or Ad Thousand Sail commercial project, which began to launch in 2023 and plans to put up to 15,000 satellites in orbit.

A recent report issued by the European Space Agency (ESA) found that more than 2,500 objects were launched in the Earth’s low orbit in 2024, more than five times the number of organisms that were launched in any year before 2020.

The number of active satellites is now similar to the number of cuts in orbit. If current trends persist at all, ESA may estimate approximately 50,000 objects greater than 10 cm in low -Earth orbit by 2050. During the next few years, there may be an average estimate of eight satellites launched daily from the ground, or a total mass of four tons of materials sent to space daily.

These satellites allow communications and access to the Internet in remote sites, and in areas destroyed by natural disasters or war. But the space surrounding our planet is increasingly crowded with both the working satellites and scrap that has been left by old tasks – the problem will get worse with the launch of more satellites.

Experts agree that we urgently need more comprehensive rules about managing things in orbit, but in an increasingly accused world, the idea of ​​global cooperation to protect space seems more far from ever.

“There is a race to fill the low orbit,” says Fishno Reedy of Arizona University.

The satellites that fill the space only work. There are millions of unwanted pieces floating around them, and many of them travel at very high speeds. The European Space Agency estimates that more than 1.2 million creatures in orbit “are large enough to be able to cause catastrophic damage” if they collide with anything. The low -Earth orbit is especially crowded with thousands of commercial things as well as thousands of other pieces of debris.

The problem is not only that debris can harm a vital piece of equipment, such as the international space station. In the event of sufficient clashes from small debris, it can create more and more debris, causing more and more collisions, which creates a consequent corner effect, which may make access to space leave, or even require closing all global space programs in the future.

The astronomer Olivier Heinot of the southern European Observatory, who worked to display the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of brightness The brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the brightness of the satellite brightness: “It is clear that the operators” “However, if they put a lot, there will be clashes. Once you start getting collisions, you can have a serial reaction, Kesler’s syndrome, and you can get a full set of orbits that are not used.”

The issue of orbital overcrowding has effects now. The satellites close to each other can overlap with the transfers of each other. Climate change makes the problem worse, as the launch of greenhouse gases causes the upper atmosphere to shrink, which reduces its ability to pull and destroy debris.

Nobody suggests that satellite or even huge constellations be banned, but the release of thousands of things per year in orbit comes with a negative side that is not recognized often. The researchers began to consider the location of the tropical capacity, and whether the current level of launch is sustainable in the long run.

The operating satellites are not the same as a problem. The company’s mascotal satellite will be tracked and monitored. But there are thousands of pieces of debris that already wanders in the low -Earth orbit that is very small. The higher the number of satellites that we put in the orbit, the greater the possibility of colliding with a piece of debris.

Who is responsible for tracking debris and preventing collision? No one, mainly. In practice, the space community is looking forward to the United States government to track information, and hopes that everyone will act with responsibility.

“Industrial satellite operators are responsible for satellite,” says Reddy. “Space power tracks a number of organisms and modernizing the catalog several times a day, and the hope is that people are able to defend themselves, based on what the United States is free freely.”

This extends to get rid of non -practical satellites. Experts agreed on Spacex, relatively responsible for removing collapsed satellites. While Starlink satellites sit in a very low orbit, a few years later falls naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere where it explodes.

Satellite operators do not want to fight with each other for space, so each uses different orbits. For example, the Kuper project was launched at a slightly higher altitude than the Starlink. However, it is still necessary to transfer satellites across other orbits, which is why orbiting the orbital is a problem.

“What rises must come down,” says Reddy. “So in the end, the Cuper should roam the orbital range of schools. What happens after that?”

Amazon did not respond to questions about how they planned to get rid of Kuper’s moons safely or how to plan to manage any possible communication.

Avoid bad days

Possible conflicts between satellite operators can become a major issue, because avoiding collisions comes at a financial cost. So, for example, a Starlink and Project Kuper Satellite satellite in a collision cycle – what experts indicate as associated – then a satellite or both need to adjust their orbit using some of their limited fuel supplies.

“You now have people in Starlink and Kuiper who have to decide who will burn the gas to avoid hitting each other, and this will eat in their profits,” says Reddy.

This is actually one of the most positive scenarios, because the satellites are at least in Starlink and Project Kuiper have clear responsibilities towards them. This is not the case for thousands of pieces of smaller debris in orbit.

“A good day is when you can get a link between two satellites, both of which work,” says Reddy. “A bad day is when you have two things that do not work, as the operators disappeared, and there is a collision. All you can do is sit and prayer does not create debris.”

It is almost impossible to predict exactly the amount of debris that any certain collision will create, because it depends on the speed of influence and direction, and what are the creatures made. With information about satellite composition sometimes, there is no way to know how much damage can be caused by the effect.

This position is multiplied by the huge satellite constellations, as thousands of satellites share orbit. If one of the satellite breakdowns and explodes, the company may need to transfer hundreds of satellites to control them – and these maneuvers can create more conjugation. The situation will be worse, and even more chaos, if there are several huge groups.

“Hope is that it will not happen,” says Reddy. “But when it happens, it can become bad quickly.”

Space debris experts, such as Reddy, are not against satellite companies that make money in space. But he wants to see these companies take more initiative to create standards and guidelines on collision prevention: “It is in their financial interest to reach a set of rules.”

Companies do not need to wait for the slow process of the international agreement to take an active role in managing this issue. “Spacex has much more experience in running a huge constellation more than any organizer we can find on the ground,” he says, and they can submit proposals on dealing with synchronization events – “So the burden is not on the world’s governments to reach a plan.”

It is also best for satellite companies to take the same issue seriously and avoid the great risks that collisions can pose, especially since more companies launch a huge planet – including companies from outside the United States.

He wondered, when, for example, there are hundreds of potential synchronization events between Starlink and huge Chinese major satellites. With the shares of this high, the question becomes: “Who will move? Will we sit there and see who is ill first?”

There must be an official system of cooperation between satellite companies, which agrees to how to make maneuvers in the case of two satellites heading to each other, says Reddy. “It is much better than saying, well, we’ll get a three -hour collision. Let’s try to defend the phone book and know who I need to call in China. This is not a good way to do business.”

The threat of collision between satellites is not purely theoretical. In 2019, the disaster was almost struck when there was Miss near the star satellite and the European Space Agency (ESA) Aeolus. ESA had to make a correction maneuver at the last minute of the satellite to avoid collision, which could have dumped debris in a large area of ​​orbit had occurred.

This will be related to any case, but this situation was especially worrying because the European Space Agency tried and failed to contact Spacex to raise the problem and coordinate satellite movement. Spacex said at the time that ESA’s e -mail warning had been ignored by a “error”.

The problem, then, as now, is that there is no legal framework for dealing with these types of potential satellite collisions. We need rules similar to that of air control but for the area, experts agree, but those rules are currently not present – and synchronization may occur at any time. Holgger Krag, head of the ESA space safety program, said at the space debris conference earlier this month that Miss near Aeolus and Starlink 44 was “a template for what we see every day.”

“Whenever two of the active spacecraft are facing each other, you have to rely on cooperation. You will have to communicate, you must coordinate the work,” said Krag. However, there are currently no laws or rules that clarify their responsibility, or how collisions should be avoided. “We are far from a clear flight base that would resolve exactly the situation that was aeolus and Starlink,” said Karaj.

Moreover, as the number of satellites in the orbit is increasing, the European Space Agency warned that the current process to avoid collision manually by setting the position of each satellite will become impossible.

The creation of a system of implementable laws regarding the use of tropical space requires an international decision by a body like the United Nations, because no country can regulate the area. But there is little international will to achieve this. The last important part of the international space legislation, which is still existing the current law, is the outer space treaty that was approved almost 60 years ago in 1967. This treaty never imagined space operations by private companies, although an organizational vacuum left issues of responsibility such as space debris.

This is a classic tragedy of the public. Nobody wants to become accessible, but a few groups are ready or able to address the problem directly.

Joseph Ashbarsh, the general manager of ESA, summarized the problem at the conference: “The message is quite clear: space wreckage is a problem and we have to do something about it.”