Piling Up

SpaceX has launched about 775 Starlink satellites so far but plans to have 42,000 by the time the constellation is complete. At a three percent failure rate — assuming it stays consistent — that amounts to 1,260 immobilized satellites waiting to smash into other stuff in space.

“I would say their failure rate is not egregious,” McDowell told Business Insider. “It’s not worse than anybody else’s failure rates. The concern is that even a normal failure rate in such a huge constellation is going to end up with a lot of bad space junk.”