Low Earth Orbit is a mess. It’s basically a high-speed junkyard, and honestly, the terrifying part isn't just the sheer volume of trash—it's the fact that and no one knows exactly how to fix it before things go south. We’re talking about millions of pieces of debris hurtling at 17,500 miles per hour. At those speeds, even a tiny fleck of paint can hit with the force of a bullet.
Space is big, sure. But the usable lanes? They're getting crowded.
Kessler Syndrome isn't some sci-fi movie plot; it’s a very real mathematical threshold proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler back in 1978. He suggested that once the density of objects in orbit reaches a certain point, a single collision will create a cloud of debris that triggers more collisions. A domino effect. If that happens, certain orbital planes could become completely unusable for generations. Think no GPS, no satellite weather tracking, and no high-speed satellite internet. It’s a total blackout scenario.
The Reality of the Orbital Junkyard
Right now, the Department of Defense’s Global Space Surveillance Network tracks about 27,000 pieces of "space junk." That sounds manageable until you realize those are just the big pieces—the stuff larger than a softball.
There are an estimated 100 million pieces of debris about one millimeter in size. You can't track those. You can't avoid them. You just have to hope your shielding holds up. In 2021, a piece of debris punched a hole five millimeters wide into the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. It was a lucky miss. Had it hit the main pressurized cabin, the conversation would be very different today.
Most people think "and no one knows" applies to the location of the junk, but the tracking is actually pretty decent for the big stuff. The real mystery is the physics of capture.
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How do you grab something that is spinning wildly, has no handles, and is made of fragile materials that might shatter the moment you touch them?
Why Nets and Harpoons Aren't a Magic Bullet
We’ve seen some wild proposals. The RemoveDEBRIS mission, led by the University of Surrey, actually tested a net and a harpoon in space. It worked! Sort of. In a controlled test with a "cooperative" target, they managed to snag a piece of junk. But the real world is messy.
If you shoot a harpoon at an old, brittle rocket stage, you might just create a thousand smaller pieces of junk. Now you’ve multiplied your problem.
Magnets are another option. A company called Astroscale is working on this. Their ELSA-d mission used a servicer craft to catch a dummy satellite using magnetic docking. It’s brilliant, but it requires the target satellite to have a specific docking plate. Most of the junk currently up there—the stuff that's actually dangerous—was launched decades ago. It doesn't have a "magnetic hitch."
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Then there’s the "laser brooming" concept. The idea is to hit debris with ground-based lasers to slow it down just enough so its orbit decays and it burns up in the atmosphere. It sounds like Star Wars. In reality, the power required is immense, and there are massive geopolitical concerns. If you can nudge a piece of junk with a laser, you can nudge a working spy satellite. No government is currently okay with another country having a "space cannon," even if it’s for cleaning up.
The Legal Nightmare of Space Ownership
Here is the kicker: Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, you can't just go around picking up other people's trash.
Every object launched into space remains the property of the nation that launched it. Forever. If a private U.S. company accidentally "cleans up" a defunct Russian spy satellite, that’s technically an act of international theft or even an act of war.
We are stuck in a bureaucratic gridlock. Space is a "global commons," much like the high seas. When everyone owns it, nobody wants to pay for the cleanup. Most satellite operators are focused on the "25-year rule"—the guideline that says you should de-orbit your satellite within 25 years of its mission ending. But it's just a guideline. There are no space police to hand out tickets.
The Economic Gap in Space Cleanup
Cleaning space is a business without a customer. Who pays for it?
NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) have limited budgets. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are focused on getting up there, not cleaning up after the people who came before them. We are waiting for a market to emerge, perhaps through orbital insurance premiums. If it becomes too expensive to insure a new satellite because of the debris risk, then—and only then—will the big players find the money to fund the janitors.
ClearSpace-1 is one of the first major attempts to pay for a cleanup. The ESA has commissioned them to remove a 112kg Vespa payload adapter left behind in 2013. The cost? Roughly 86 million Euros.
That is 86 million Euros to remove one piece of junk. There are thousands more. The math just doesn't add up yet.
What Needs to Change Immediately
To avoid the Kessler Syndrome, we can't just keep "studying" the problem. We need a shift in how we handle orbital assets.
- Design for Demise: Satellites need to be built to burn up completely upon re-entry. Using materials like aluminum instead of titanium for certain components ensures that nothing survives the fall to hit the ground.
- Active Removal Incentives: Governments should offer tax breaks or "orbital slots" to companies that actively remove old debris as part of their new launch contracts.
- Standardized Docking Ports: Moving forward, every single object sent into orbit should be required to have a standardized, magnetic, or mechanical "grab point."
The situation is urgent but not yet hopeless. We have the technology to track the danger, and we are starting to develop the tools to grab it. What we lack is a unified global legal framework and a functional economy for orbital maintenance. Until we treat the space around our planet with the same ecological respect we (ideally) give our oceans, the risk of losing our "eye in the sky" remains a coin flip.
Practical Steps for the Satellite Era
If you are entering the aerospace sector or investing in "New Space," your due diligence must include orbital sustainability.
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- Prioritize companies using automated collision avoidance systems. SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, for example, use ion thrusters to autonomously move out of the way of tracked debris.
- Support international pressure for "Zero Debris" charters. The ESA’s Zero Debris initiative aims to stop the creation of new junk by 2030.
- Acknowledge that "and no one knows" the final solution because the solution isn't one machine—it's a massive, multi-decade shift in international law and engineering standards.
The path forward requires treating Low Earth Orbit as a finite resource rather than an infinite vacuum. If we don't start cleaning the yard, we're going to find ourselves trapped on the porch, unable to leave the planet because we've surrounded ourselves with a cage of our own making.