Orbital commons / Kessler syndrome
Orbital commons / Kessler syndrome
The near-Earth orbit band is a finite, degrading commons being partitioned by private constellation operators before it is fully measured.
Related: scaled-debris-numbers, cleanspace-active-debris, The last frontier comes with a bill
Space surveillance networks track about 40,000 objects, roughly 11,000 of them active payloads, but debris objects larger than 1 cm — large enough to cause catastrophic damage — are estimated at over 1.2 million. src
Around 550 km altitude, the band preferred by communication constellations, the density of threatening debris is now the same order of magnitude as the density of active satellites. src