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Lecturnoiter t1_j255i0c wrote

Yes it will. All these idiots don't understand that people live in a few specific places on the planet and that's where most of the satellites are focused. We also can only put them so high or so low in orbit, it's complicated and there's not a lot of usable space available.

There are procedures to de-orbit old satellites but even small collisions create debris clouds that can last for hundreds of years. We get a bunch of those going and we can't safely launch any more. The parties involved are usually pretty careful but it only takes a handful of people making a handful of mistakes to ruin space for everyone.

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NotShey t1_j277reg wrote

>small collisions create debris clouds that can last for hundreds of years.

All of these satellites are at extremely low altitudes. There is measurably dense atmosphere in these orbits. Without active station keeping they will deorbit due to air resistance in about a year.

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