When I wrote on the problem posed by space debris four years ago (Gyan Vitaranam Nov 15- Dec 14, 2015), big corporations had not announced their specific plans to put tens of thousands of small communication satellites into the low earth orbit for providing global Internet services. Today, with the era of mega constellations of satellites becoming a reality, their impact calls for a closer look at the danger they pose to the very existence of the orbit in which they would function.
The near earth orbit,where remote sensing satellites monitor the earth’s resources and small communications satellites provide Internet and other services, is in danger of over- crowding and collisions, leading to a point of no return in the not -so-distant future. We cannot ignore it as the price of progress; the world can ill-afford to lose this precious natural gift. Collective action by all spacefaring countries is called for. ISRO has set an example of what....
