Too Many Satellites in Orbit: How the Planet Will Look in 9 Years

A new space race is beginning to take shape quite alarmingly. We refer to the thousands of communications satellites that many private companies plan to launch into Earth’s orbit in the coming years. Releases that might sound insignificant at first, but that, put into perspective, are more scary than you might imagine.

Connect the world at any price

The idea of many companies such as SpaceX, Amazon and OneWeb is to launch a large number of satellites into space to create a mesh network that surrounds the Earth to enjoy high-speed communications. The plans go through these networks are running at full speed in about 10 years, so we would not have to wait too long to see this new communication structure globally.

Knowing that this will allow you to have communications in every corner of the world without limits, what is wrong with deploying a global network that allows you to be in communication with any part of the world instantly? The fault lies in a number: 57,000 .satelite

That will be the number of satellites that are planned to be in orbit by the next 2029. Given that we are in full 2020, that 2029 should not sound too far or futuristic at this point (yes, it still seems), so That deployment is imminent. To give you an idea, 57,000 satellites is 25 times the number of space aircraft that are currently orbiting the Earth, but if you want something that makes you see things clearly, you better take a look at the following representation in video.

A space scrapping

The video was presented by Dan Oltrogge at the 23rd annual Commercial Space Transport Conference of the Federal Aviation Administration, with the idea of raising awareness of the problem that could come upon us. Two days before the presentation, two satellites were about to collide in space for an error, something that could have caused thousands of space debris.

According to Kevin O’Connell, director of the Office of Space Commerce, these types of failures and unforeseen events occur with a certain frequency, so Oltrogge’s video does nothing but let us know what we could have in a few years.

They are many, but the situation is under control

To give you an idea, SpaceX plans to launch 12,000 satellites with its StarLink program, to which we would have to add thousands of OneWeb, Iridum and Amazon’s Kuiper project. This would increase the number of satellites massively, however, it seems that not everything is lost.

Oltrogge himself says that in the Earth’s orbit there is room for many satellites, and the most interesting thing is that models are being developed that allow their disintegration when they stop serving, so the number would decrease and would not accumulate in the form of garbage space.

There is no doubt that the challenge of managing space exists, so the next few years will be crucial in determining