Orbital Debris

Orbit Is Getting More Crowded and More Volatile, and Fleet Size Alone Won't Fix That

A Portuguese space-traffic company just partnered with a Belgian sensor maker to catch debris that’s currently invisible to almost everyone tracking it. In the same stretch of news, a space-weather analytics firm put a dollar figure on what solar storms are about to cost orbital infrastructure, and the number is getting worse fast. Neither story mentions the other, but string them together and you get one honest picture: orbit is getting more crowded and more volatile, and the standard answer, put up more satellites, doesn’t automatically buy more resilience.