If 1 million satellites were positioned at different points between Earth and the moon, less than 10% would survive long enough to be worth the hassle of sending them up in the first place, new supercomputer simulations suggest. This is not as disastrous as it initially sounds, but it does highlight the complex challenges of expanding humankind’s orbital capabilities, the study shows.
Over the past few years, the number of active spacecraft orbiting our planet has skyrocketed — largely thanks to the emergence of private satellite “megaconstellations,” like SpaceX’s infamous Starlink network and China’s growing Thousand Sails project — and the trend is just beginning.
Some experts predict that low Earth orbit (LEO) could safely support up to 100,000 satellites before spacecraft would start uncontrollably crashing into one another, potentially leading to a worst-case domino-effect scenario known as the “Kessler syndrome.” Such a scenario would make it impossible to launch anything else into space.
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