True, but they can be methodically grounded if need be, and we’ve done it successfully before. We don’t have any good playbooks for clearing space debris.
It is indeed mostly no longer a concern. The rules are much stricter now so less space junk is being created. Hopefully within a few years we'll reach "net zero" and then start reducing orbital debris after that.
Note that these are going into a low orbit that requires regular boosting, otherwise they’ll fall back into the atmosphere within a couple of years at most. There’s no long term space junk threat.
The simple was to counter this is through polluting that space with debris. Sure, it clears out in a couple of years, but then you can just put up more of it. Getting into a arms race in orbit is a bad idea for everyone.
Graveryard orbits and atmospheric reentry are the solutions to Kessler that at least the US mandates. If push game to shove, I'm sure we could find some satellites to knock out of orbit. I highly doubt as a species that we would remain grounded permanently.
FWIW, these satellites and others like them don’t really pose the threat you are referring to. They are designed to operate in a very low orbit that will decay in a couple of years, causing them to naturally burn up over time rather than remain as space junk.
They’re already in place that has enough drag. The satellites will deorbit in months to years without periodic boosts. Debris will come down faster, since they have more surface area relative to their mass. A single impulse always results in an orbit that intersects the original orbit at the location of the impulse, so it’s impossible for a collision to raise debris entirely beyond that altitude.
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