Add in thousands of new satellites from various race-to-the-bottom move-fast-and-break-things companies and Kessler syndrome seems less hypothetical and more inevitable.
"a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase"
Imagine if the other satellite operator had been similarly negligent, or if the satellite had been defunct. It will be somewhat ironic if a Musk-led operation grounds humanity on Earth for a decade or more.
https://medium.com/@leolabs_space/the-iras-ggse-4-close-appr...
https://spacenews.com/esa-spacecraft-dodges-potential-collis...
Add in thousands of new satellites from various race-to-the-bottom move-fast-and-break-things companies and Kessler syndrome seems less hypothetical and more inevitable.
"a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase"
Imagine if the other satellite operator had been similarly negligent, or if the satellite had been defunct. It will be somewhat ironic if a Musk-led operation grounds humanity on Earth for a decade or more.