Solar coronal loops, such as those observed by NASA’s Transition Region And Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite here in 2005, follow the path of the magnetic field on the Sun. When these loops ‘break’ in just the right way, they can emit coronal mass ejections, which have the potential to impact Earth. A large CME or solar flare could create a new type of natural disaster: a ‘Flaremageddon’ scenario. (NASA / TRACE)

Flaremageddon: How Satellite Mega-Constellations Could Create A New Natural Disaster

With tens of thousands of satellites requiring AI-control to avoid collisions, a single solar flare could everything.

Over the next few years, the night sky and the volume of space that surrounds the Earth are both poised to become very different than they’ve been for all of human history. As of 2019, humanity had launched an estimated total of between 8,000 and 9,000 satellites, with approximately 2,000 of them still active. As SpaceX’s Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, Telesat and other companies prepare to provide worldwide 5G coverage from space (more than 300 new satellites have gone up for these purposes in the last 9 months), humanity is beginning to enter the era of satellite mega-constellations.

While media coverage has largely mentioned only one detrimental effect so far — the damage that these satellites are already causing to astronomy — there’s a second consequence that could be even more disastrous: Kessler syndrome. With tens or even hundreds of thousands of satellites in orbit, a single collision could trigger a chain reaction. With the realities of solar flares and the technological needs of mega-constellations, this new type of natural disaster may be unavoidable.