Parallax · space desk · — 02

Space junk now grows even if nobody launches

Last year one company's satellites dodged 300,000 times. The junk you never see has never once been cleaned up.

It has already started

Zero new launches, and the debris total still rises.

What most people think

Space junk is a problem for later. Stop launching and the sky slowly clears itself.

What the data shows

0new launches

Even at zero new launches, the total still climbs. Thin air up there drags fragments down, but break-ups add them faster than it can.

ESA, the agency that counts what is in orbit, wrote this in its 2025 report.

WHAT CHANGED

Even with nothing new going up, the debris count still rises. Here is where most of it came from.

Jan 11 2007
Fengyun-1C · China's test
Feb 10 2009
Two satellites collide
The first time two whole satellites ever hit each other.
Mar 27 2019
Mission Shakti · India's test
Nov 15 2021
Cosmos 1408 · Russia's test
Jun 26 2024
An old satellite breaks up
Aug 6 2024
A rocket stage fragments
About a tenth of 2025's near-miss risk came from this.

THE RECORD

Why did one test's cloud vanish while another's is still up there? The answer is the height it happened at.

Five break-ups by altitude. The lowest cleared in two years. The highest clears after 2100.km
Fengyun-1C · 2007 865 865 km. Nothing slows it. Still there after 2100.
Rocket stage · 2024 800
Two satellites · 2009 789
Cosmos 1408 · 2021 480
Mission Shakti · 2019 283 283 km. The air still reaches. Gone in two years.

WHERE IT BROKE

That chain has a price, and it is already being paid. Start with one company's share of it.

Starlink made more than 300,000 avoidance moves in 2025.

Starlink course changes in 2025

300,000+

A move is ordered when the odds of a hit pass 3-in-10-million.

  • at least 34 every hour, all year long 300,000 divided across the year's hours

  • three lakh course changes, one fleet, one year the same figure, said in lakh

THE RENT

Three lakh dodges is one company's bill. Here is what the rest of the sky already costs.

Sharing low orbit · 1998 to 2026
10,074
Starlink satellites in orbit
As of March 20, 2026. Crossed 10,000 on March 17.
0
pieces of debris ever removed
One mission flew within 15 metres in 2024, then left.
~10 %
of all near-miss risk in 2025
A near miss is a dangerously close pass. All from one rocket-stage break-up, August 2024.
39
space-station debris dodges since 1998
The last was April 30, 2025, dodging a 2005 fragment.

SIX READINGS

Nothing has ever been removed from orbit, and only one operator has ever been fined. Both sides here are true at once.

What you already pay
Everyone up there pays to dodge everyone else's junk.
Every avoidance burn costs fuel, which means less working life. The space station has moved 39 times since 1998. One broadband fleet moved more than 300,000 times in 2025 alone.
What nobody owes
Nobody is bound to stop making the junk.
In December 2022 the United Nations asked states to stop destructive anti-satellite tests. The vote was 155 for and 9 against. China and Russia were two of those 9. India abstained, neither for nor against, and the resolution binds nobody.

THE SHARED BILL

That's the short version.

Full issue · 8 sections · 12 sources, all linked

Read the full issue →