In late August 2019, scientists working at the European Space Agency received a warning that one of its flagship satellites was about to collide with one of Elon Musk’s recently launched Starlinks. Emails were sent to SpaceX but the team said they had no plan to take any action.

As the probability of collision continued to increase, communication was lost between the two satellite operators – SpaceX later blamed a “bug” in its systems – and ESA was forced to perform its first ever collision avoidance manoeuvre. The car-sized Aeolus satellite fired its thrusters, and with just half an orbit remaining, catastrophe was averted.

Had the two objects crashed into each other, hundreds of thousands of fragments could have formed a debris cloud capable of triggering what is known as the Kessler Syndrome. This is where one collision causes a runaway cascade of collisions with other satellites that transform low-Earth orbit into a spinning junkyard, destroying crucial communication networks and rendering future space activities impossible for many generations.

At the time, there were less than 3,000 active satellites. This week, SpaceX launched its 10,000th Starlink, with the total number of active satellites numbering around 8,500 – roughly two thirds of all active satellites orbiting Earth.

The total number of satellites orbiting Earth is expected to reach 100,000 by 2030, according to estimates from the European Space Agency. The majority of these will be space internet constellations, which will bring universal internet access to every square metre of the habitable world – but they also come with profound risks for humanity.

Elon Musk’s monopoly

The latest launch of Starlink satellites means that Elon Musk now controls two thirds of all active satellites. The richest man on Earth is now the most powerful person in space, with SpaceX also responsible for the vast majority of global space launches this year.

His private company is expected to deliver 90 per cent of the world’s payload mass to space in 2025, set to beat its own record of 138 launches in a single year next week. When one of his followers posted on X that SpaceX is “essentially the US space program”, Musk replied: “It is pretty much Earth’s space program.”

Musk’s space monopoly has led to concerns about over dependency and the risk of abuse of such power.

One of the biggest demonstrations of his influence has been in Ukraine, where Starlink has become “the essential backbone of communications” on the battlefield, according to Ukrainian personnel. The network allows the military to control drones, coordinate long-range artillery strikes, and connect soldiers with family and friends away from the front lines.

But in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Musk denied a request from Ukrainian government officials to activate his internet satellite service near Crimea. The billionaire later claimed that this was to avoid escalating the conflict, but a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused him of “committing evil”.

In a post to X, Mykhailo Podolyak claimed that Musk’s actions would result in civilians and children being killed by Russian strikes. “This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” he wrote.

Musk’s actions demonstrated the influence he could wield over critical infrastructure, and geopolitics more broadly, simply by deciding whether to flip a switch. It also marked the first time a private individual has been able to intervene in wartime communications in a way that meaningfully impacted battlefield results.

Earlier this year, the head of Thales, one of Europe’s largest satellite manufacturers, voiced concerns about relying on someone who “mixes up economic rationale and political motivation”, in a clear warning over Musk’s Starlink.

“Government actors need reliability, visibility and stability,” said Thales CEO Patrrice Caine at a press briefing in March. “When you operate government communications you don’t necessarily want to be dependent on an external person, whoever that is.”

Satellites falling out of the sky

Musk’s dominance in this domain has pushed rivals to establish their own mega constellations, including other billionaire-funded endeavours like Jeff Bezos’s Project Kuiper. There are also state-backed networks from China that number in the tens of thousands, with experts warning about the lack of regulation or oversight in the space.

As well as a potential Kessler Syndrome occurring, US researchers have said that the huge numbers of satellites could leave harmful chemicals in the atmosphere when they burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The lifespan of Starlinks is around five years, with recent estimations revealing that one to two of Musk’s satellites are falling to Earth every day.

A study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that particles released by old satellites could warm the top layers of the atmosphere by as much as 1.5 degrees. Others have warned that these increasing reentries could even pose a more immediate risk to people on the ground.

“The industry continues to need better models for forecasting the exact time and location of large uncontrolled reentries,” Dr Siamak Hesar, an expert in space debris and chief executive of Nasa contractor Kayhan Space, tells The Independent.

“Forecasting remains difficult because reentry dynamics depend on rapidly changing factors such as solar activity, atmospheric density, object orientation, and material composition. These are variables that current models can only approximate in real time.”

Despite the near-miss incident in 2019 with ESA’s satellite, SpaceX is actually one of the best companies when it comes to controlling its satellites.

“Starlink’s systems are actually ahead of the curve in several areas, including active propulsion, continuous monitoring, automated conjunction avoidance, broadcasting their precise ephemerides [position and trajectory] and maneuver plans publicly,” Dr Hesar says.

“That level of active management makes a real difference in reducing collision risk and ensuring safe end-of-life disposal. Many operators do not share their planned manoeuvers with other operators, which can create a significant amount of risk in the orbital environment.”

As more players enter the space, this will continue to increase the risk of the Kessler Syndrome being triggered. Musk has said numerous times that he hopes to die on Mars, using Starlink to finance his ultimate ambition of establishing a permanent human colony on the Red Planet. If the Kessler Syndrome occurs, he could be trapped on Earth.