Kessler’s Nightmare
Don’t Just Launch, Last!
Pic Credits: LEO Labs
Thousands of satellites just ~500 kilometers above Earth are locked in a silent game of orbital dodgeball, twisting, thrusting, and side-stepping disaster at 28,000 km/h, on a daily basis.
The rapid rise of satellites in space, driven largely by players like SpaceX, OneWeb, and Amazon's Kuiper, has led to the emergence of large-scale satellite constellations comprising thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). While these constellations promise global internet coverage and real-time Earth observation, they also drastically increase orbital congestion. This raises the risk of collisions and contributes to a phenomenon known as Kessler Syndrome, a theoretical cascade in which one collision creates debris that triggers further collisions, exponentially worsening the problem.
For instance, in 2009, a defunct Russian satellite collided with Iridium 33, creating over 2,000 pieces of trackable debris. Now, with >50,000 satellites projected by 2030, the chances of such events rise sharply. Without robust space traffic management and de-orbiting strategies, the benefits of mega-constellations could be overshadowed by the long-term threat of an unusable LEO environment.
Just a few years ago, space was a quieter place. Orbits weren’t crowded, and maneuvering was minimal, perhaps a slight adjustment here, a small burn there. Collision avoidance maneuver was a good-to-have rather than a must-have feature. There are no fiery explosions or cinematic drama, just a constant stream of high-stakes, real-time decisions: adjust or risk impact. Every few minutes, satellites are executing burns, recalculating trajectories, and playing an endless orbital game of chess.
By 2024, Starlink satellites alone were performing as many as 275 collision-avoidance maneuvers per day, that’s nearly 50,000 course corrections in just six months, all of which is achieved through dynamic, intelligent orbit management, and at the heart of it all is propulsion. Not just a subsystem anymore, not an afterthought; propulsion has become the core operating system of every modern constellation.
So, What Really Changed?
Space is getting crowded, really crowded. A satellite that can’t maneuver isn’t just a stranded asset worth $10–15 million; it’s a high-speed liability, threatening to cause hundreds of millions in collateral damage. With over 8,000 active satellites already in orbit and tens of thousands more on the way, Low Earth Orbit is beginning to look like the I-405 at rush hour: packed, chaotic, and fraught with risk. As traffic intensifies, the margin for error shrinks, turning every defunct or drifting satellite into a potential trigger for cascading collisions.
Launch is no longer the hurdle it once was; reusable rockets and ride-share programs have made orbit access routine. The new chokepoint is how you manage once you are in orbit: managing swarms of satellites, keeping them in formation, avoiding collisions, and retiring them responsibly.
The race to establish satellite constellations is intensifying, with dozens of players entering the arena and forging strategic partnerships with broadband network providers. Companies like SES are collaborating with industry giants such as Reliance, while AST SpaceMobile has joined forces with Vodafone to expand their reach. Even tech behemoths like Apple are getting in on the action, partnering with satellite suppliers (Globalstar) to enhance their service offerings. This surge in activity underscores a growing trend: space is becoming increasingly crowded, and the congestion is only set to worsen in the coming years.
And, with so many active objects, the risk of close approaches has skyrocketed. The industry standard used to be to dodge if collision odds were worse than 1 in 10,000. Starlink, notably, has tightened its threshold to 1 in 1,000,000, meaning its satellites will move even for extremely remote collision chances.
That’s not all, space regulators and agencies have also woken up to the debris and collision issue. New rules make propulsion mandatory. For example, the U.S. FCC recently adopted a “5-year rule” for deorbit. Satellites must be removed from orbit within 5 years of mission end (down from the old 25-year guideline).
A typical satellite costs $10–15 million to build, launch, and operate. But the real cost of a collision goes far beyond hardware.
Each satellite that fails to dodge becomes a high-speed lawsuit waiting to happen, and each missed maneuver can cascade into a Kessler-like chain reaction of orbital debris.
With collision alerts happening daily and constellation scale-ups underway, satellite operators now need propulsion systems to make the satellite agile, deliver fine-tuned Delta-V without over burning, and execute hundreds of reliable burns.
In other words, the financial viability of constellations now depends directly on the responsiveness of their propulsion systems.
The following is an estimate of a potential economic impact of a space collision. Please note the provided numbers are highly calculated based on widely available assumption and it can change based on the application, the size of the satellite, potential revenue of the satellite, etc.
Propulsion to the Rescue
Satellite operators don’t just need thrusters anymore, they need confidence. Confidence that their assets will dodge, deliver , and eventually deorbit. That every course correction will be clean. That a 3 AM alert won’t turn into a headline.
At Bellatrix, we don’t just build propulsion. We build assurance.
Our RUDRA series isn't an add-on; it’s the operating layer for safe, scalable space operations. Designed for agility in an era of orbital chaos, RUDRA enables:
Millisecond Response Times for critical evasive maneuvers
Seamless & Scalable integration across satellite classes
Green Chemical Propellant that meets emerging global regulations
While others are still treating propulsion like an add-on, Bellatrix treats it like infrastructure, a critical layer enabling autonomy, compliance, and commercial reliability in orbit.
As the number of active satellites surges, the importance of deorbiting is no longer optional, it’s existential. In orbit, even a millimeter-sized fragment can strike with the force of a bullet due to velocities exceeding 7 km/s. Today, over 40,500 objects larger than 10 centimeters—ranging from defunct satellites to spent rocket bodies—are circling Earth, alongside 1.1 million pieces between 1 and 10 centimeters, and a staggering 130 million fragments of 1 millimeter and larger. This growing cloud of debris, from flecks of paint to shattered mission remains, poses a lethal threat to active spacecraft.
Pic Credits: ESA
The FCC’s new “5-year rule” reflects growing urgency: satellites must now deorbit within five years of mission end, down from the previous 25-year guideline. Operators who fail to plan reliable end-of-life maneuvers risk turning their assets into long-lived debris hazards.
Effective propulsion isn’t just about staying operational, it’s about ensuring responsible retirement. At Bellatrix, we design systems with deorbiting as a built-in function, not an afterthought. We believe in today’s crowded skies, the final burn isn’t just about closure, it’s about preserving the orbital commons for future generations.
As LEO grows denser and constellations grow larger, only the operators with precise, responsive, and regulation-ready propulsion will win.
And only those who integrate it early will stay ahead of the curve.
So, in case Kessler reaches out again, call us.
Email: info@bellatrix.aero