Low Earth orbit has become crowded quickly. Constellations numbering thousands of satellites now share altitudes with defunct hardware and fragments from earlier collisions.
READ: India Lands a Spacecraft Near the Lunar South Pole
Collision avoidance is handled largely by operators sharing data voluntarily. There is no traffic controller with authority to order a manoeuvre.
Debris compounds itself. Each collision creates fragments that raise the probability of the next, a feedback loop researchers have warned about for decades.
READ: NASA's Curiosity Rover Lands Safely on Mars
Proposed remedies include deorbit requirements, insurance mandates and active removal missions. All require the kind of binding international agreement that has proved elusive.
