3 days to lose LEO

Summary

Podcast Summary: AWESOME ASTRONOMY

Episode: 3 days to lose LEO
Date: January 16, 2026
Hosts: Paul & Dr. Jeni

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the current state of Earth's orbital environment—particularly low Earth orbit (LEO)—and the mounting crisis of space debris, satellite proliferation, and the dangers of Kessler Syndrome. The hosts dissect the exponential rise in satellites (specifically Starlink), the chilling implications of new research on orbital collisions, and wrap up with a note of hope thanks to innovative satellite technology. The tone, as always, is equal parts informative and irreverent.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Humanity’s Mess: From Earth to Space

• [00:00] The episode opens with an unsparing comparison: Just as humans have polluted Earth (Everest, oceans), we've filled space with refuse—dead robots on Mars, defunct spacecraft on the Moon, and now, a crowded LEO.
• Quote (Paul, 00:51): "In a tale as old as time, we discovered a new place, a brand new resource, and we spunked it up the wall in less than a human lifespan. This is why we can’t have anything nice."

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2. The Artemis 2 Update

• [08:26–13:57] Status: No deep dive as rocket hasn’t rolled out; early launch windows are in February–April 2026.
  • All launches are overnight UK/EU time (1–4am UTC).
  • Artemis 2 mission is a lunar flyby with no landing—akin to Apollo 8.
  • Historic crew: First woman and first non-American (Canadian) near the Moon.
• Quote (Jeni, 11:38): "There will be first time a woman has been anywhere near the moon. First time a non-American has been anywhere near the moon. Because there’s a Canadian on board."
• General disappointment at the lack of buildup or public excitement compared to past missions.

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3. Satellites: By the Numbers

ESA’s “Space Debris by the Numbers” Highlights

• [14:45–29:28] Breakdown of startling facts:
  • 7,070 successful rocket launches since 1957.
  • 23,700 satellites ever launched; about 16,000 currently in orbit.
  • About 13,000 of those are still working; 3,000 are defunct satellites.
  • 43,500 tracked pieces of debris (larger than 10cm); 54,000 estimated actual >10cm pieces.
  • 1.2 million bits between 1–10cm, and 140 million between 1mm–1cm.
  • 650 breakup, collision, or fragmentation events in orbital history (nearly one a month since 1957).
• Quote (Jeni, 21:31): "If you really want to sink low into your sofa, between a millimeter and a centimeter, we think it’s about 140 million pieces."
• Debris is fastest and most dangerous in LEO (up to 25,000 mph), with even millimeter-sized pieces capable of catastrophic damage.

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4. Orbits Explained

• [22:47–30:38]
  • Geostationary (GEO): 36,000km up, stationary above a fixed point—used for telecoms, weather.
  • Low Earth Orbit (LEO): 180–2,000km, busiest (ISS, Starlink, imaging satellites); broad shell, not just a narrow band.
  • Polar/ Sun-Synchronous Orbits: Subcategories of LEO, provide global coverage and consistent lighting conditions for imaging.
  • Medium Earth Orbit (MEO): Home to navigation satellites, less crowded due to Van Allen belts.
  • Highly Eccentric Orbits: For studying Earth’s atmosphere/magnetosphere, dip into and out of LEO—their path exposes them to debris risks.

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5. Satellites: Brief History & Vanguard 1

• [31:22–39:02]
  • Spotlight on Vanguard 1, the fourth-ever satellite and the oldest still in orbit (launched 1958, expected to stay up 200+ more years).
  • Contribution: Provided baseline atmospheric data still used today, pioneering solar-powered satellite.
  • Survived early launch failures—testament to robust design and engineering.
• Quote (Paul, 37:44): "As a legacy, that’s amazing… it all goes back to the data from Vanguard 1."

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6. Starlink and the Satellite Boom

• [39:02–41:02]
  • Of 13,000 currently active satellites, nearly 9,500 are Starlinks (as of Jan 2026).
  • 1957–2018 saw only 2,000 satellites reach LEO; 2019–2026, Starlink alone has added 9,400.
  • The “Wild West” of orbital regulations: easy approval processes, few meaningful restrictions.

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7. Kessler Syndrome: The New Risk

• [41:02–47:11]
  • Recap: Kessler Syndrome = runaway cascade of collisions/perpetual debris growth in orbit.
  • New study (Crash Clock): If satellite control lost (e.g., solar storm, global IT outage), the window to avert catastrophic collisions has shrunk alarmingly:
    • 7 years ago: ~4 months until first serious collisions—a manageable margin.
    • Today: Less than 3 days (2.84 days) before major collisions begin.
  • Starlink dominance is the main driver of this risk.
• Quote (Paul, 46:08): "Less than three days. If we lose communication… we’ve got three days to get that back under control."
• Implies the ISS and all of LEO’s assets could be lost in a 3-day communication blackout.

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8. Mitigation and Hope: What Can We Do?

• [47:37–53:10]

  • Solutions discussed:
    • Stricter deorbit rules: New satellites must either burn up (“graveyard orbit”) or be disposed of—old rules didn’t require this.
    • Debris removal and recycling satellites in orbit.
    • Refueling and repairing defunct satellites rather than abandonment.
    • Material innovation: Building satellites from wood to minimize harmful emissions when burning up (less alumina, which depletes ozone).
    • Reusable satellites (e.g., Space Forge’s Forgestar project).

• Success Story: Space Forge Forgestar

  • First automated, free-flying, uncrewed satellite to manufacture semiconductors in orbit with plasma (previously only the ISS had done this).
  • Aims for reusability and in-orbit recycling—“proof you can do this autonomously… you don’t need to do it on the space station.”
  • Next step: Forgestar 2 will attempt return and recovery of manufactured semiconductor goods.

• Quote (Jeni, 53:14): "There are companies working on our too-many-satellites-in-space problem. People are working on it. So not all hope is lost."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [00:51] Paul: "This is why we can't have anything nice."
• [21:31] Jeni: "If you really want to sink low into your sofa, between a millimeter and a centimeter, we think it's about 140 million pieces."
• [37:44] Paul: "As a legacy, that's amazing… it all goes back to the data from Vanguard 1."
• [39:36] Jeni: "As of January 2026, almost 9,500 of those as Starlink. And therein lies the problem."
• [46:08] Paul: "Less than three days. If we lose communication… we've got three days to get that back under control."
• [53:14] Jeni: "People are working on it. So not all hope is lost."

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:00 Humanity's untidy legacy—from Everest to LEO
• 08:26–13:57 Artemis 2 updates and timeline
• 14:45–29:28 Satellite and space debris statistics (ESA data)
• 22:47–30:38 Types of orbital regimes explained
• 31:22–39:02 History of Vanguard 1
• 39:02–41:02 The rise of Starlink and LEO crowding
• 41:02–47:11 Kessler syndrome & the “crash clock” study
• 47:37–53:10 Possible solutions & hope: Space Forge's breakthrough

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Final Thoughts

Paul and Jeni’s dynamic—Jeni’s effusive energy vs. Paul’s dry skepticism—keeps the technical content lively and engaging. This episode expertly frames the pressing concern: In under a decade, the orbital environment has gone from manageable to acutely fragile, driven mostly by commercial satellite megaconstellations. Yet there’s a clear message: With coordinated international effort, creativity, and respect for orbital stewardship, disaster can be averted—and humanity might, just might, start cleaning up its cosmic backyard.

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For feedback and questions (and to check if their email still works): the show at awesomeastronomy.com

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Transcript

[A]

Take only pictures, leave only footprints is the twee white woman's Instagram post that gets shared from time to time, but no human has ever lived up to that. Everest is covered in rubbish, Antarctica is increasingly covered in hydrocarbon pollution, and turtles swim in a sea of plastic straws and Lego. And so it is with space. The moon is littered with the spaceships both successful and failed, as well as the shite of the 12 humans who did leave their footprints. Mars is covered in dead robots. There's even a comet whizzing around with two crash craft on its surface. And then there's low Earth orbit. Oh, humanity, what the F have you done? In a tale as old as time, we discovered a new place, a brand new resource, and we spunked it up the wall in less than a human lifespan. This is why we can't have anything nice. Oh well, given what an unmitigated shit show we make of everything, perhaps it's for the best that we trap ourselves down here in a self made planetary quarantine. Hi, I'm Paul.

[B]

And I'm Jenny.

[A]

And welcome to episode 166 of awesome Astronomy for January 2026. Hello there.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Hello there.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

I warn you, dear listener. Now I'm just going to give you. You can hear it already. I'm going to give you the little preamp. A certain Dr. Dust is for some reason very excitable this evening.

[B]

I am. I've just had a really good day. I just. I like smashed through a load of work, right. I had a really nice dinner. I had Mac and cheese and like roasted veg and it was absolutely banging, right? And no, but it was so right. And I started like selling stuff on vintage instead of just buying. I've been buying on vintage for ages but like now I'm like selling on there as well and like I'm selling stuff and like this is nothing to do with space by the way, but it's just put me in a good mood and like I bought this lush jumper which I'm very excited about. It's like I've heard all about the jumper.

[A]

I've already heard all about the jumper.

[B]

Yeah, it's like 100% wool and I'm off to Norway soon, so it's gonna keep me nice and warm and yeah, I'm just as a really, really good day. So I am like, I'm just bouncing off the walls today. So it's gonna be a very excitable episode from my half. You're like more chill and mellow today. You're quite.

[A]

I'm all. I'm all chilled vibes, me. I'm all, like, just chilled and relaxed and I've had a good day. But just. Just enough.

[B]

Yeah, but it was great earlier because we were talking about the script and I was like, I've written loads. There's loads in the script. And then because this is our chatty, chatty episodes, and then you're like, is there loads? Why does there need to be loads? It just reflects our mood today. I'm also excited for this episode. This is going to be a really, really good episode, I think, which we'll get onto in a bit.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So what. What have you been up to? What. What's. What's going on, other than, like, smashing vinted and. And getting jumpers and selling stuff.

[B]

Yeah. So another lecture for Astronomy in Action. Of course, I do with Cardiffuni. So this one was all about the moon, although we only got halfway through it just because everyone was so excited that we were doing the moon and, like, loads of questions about lunar exploration and stuff like that. So we're gonna finish it off in the last session, which is like our round lip session anyway. But it was really good. And I got to do the classic flower with the chocolate on the top,

[A]

only I haven't done that for ages.

[B]

I know, I know. It's such a simple experiment, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's, like, such a good visual aid because the thing is, the people on the course, adults, and so, like, you know, sometimes they're a bit like, oh, do we want to do something like this? But the reason I do these kind of experiments with them is so that they can do them with, like, family.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they can do them with, like, nieces and nephews, kids, grandkids, you know, stuff like that. And it was super fun, only I didn't have any hot chocolate and so I had to raid my mum and dad's expensive coffee that they leave in my house. So if dad. If you're listening, some of your, like, I can't even remember what it is. It's like a silver tin and it's got an orange lid and it's like spenny. So that. That was a. Went into a cumin seed shaker. That was my back. It's a cumin seed shaker and I, like, use that to go over the top of the flower.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I know. But the room smelled lovely afterwards.

[A]

I bet it did. I bet everyone was on big caffeine highs. They're, like, absorbing it straight into their bloodstream.

[B]

But then I realized this is actually maybe a hack for doing it with kids, because the thing is, people always do it with, like, chocolate powder. But then the problem is the kids, like, stick their fingers in the chocolate powder and, like, try and eat it. This is coffee.

[A]

I've never had that happen.

[B]

Yeah, I've had this. Every time that I've done it is. They start like. They're like, oh, miss, it smells so good. Can we. Can we eat it? And I go, no, you can't eat it. Like, oh, can we eat it, though? No, you. And then before you know it, they're all just putting their fingers in, and then they're like, oh, it tastes weird. And it's like, I know, because it's got flour mixed in with it. But, yeah, I've had it every time.

[A]

Wow. I've never had that.

[B]

Clearly I don't have as much authority as you do to listen to you.

[A]

There's that. Or just like, you know, the malnourished children of Wales are just, you know,

[B]

only time they get to taste chocolate, it's chocolate.

[A]

This is still on the ration.

[B]

It's true. Maybe that's the reason I'm bringing them a rare delight, and they just can't resist. But. Yeah. And then in a few days, I'm. As we're recording, I'm off to Swindon astronomical society to also talk about the moon.

[A]

Oh, you're just down the road from me.

[B]

Yeah, I am, actually. Yeah.

[A]

Swindon. Yeah, just around the corner.

[B]

Oh, maybe I'm gonna call in and have dinner then. Early dinner.

[A]

When are you coming?

[B]

Friday?

[A]

Oh, I'm out working

[B]

late.

[A]

I'm performing on Friday.

[B]

Oh, yeah, you are. You are. That's what you're doing.

[A]

I'm in a. I'm in a. I'm in a theatre, performing, Doing me. Doing my thing. Doing me science fiction show.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, then tell the people. Well, too much, obviously. Not spoilers, but.

[A]

Oh, it's just. It's called to boldly go far, far away, and it's the. The science of science fiction. So it's a show about. Are some of the things you see in science fiction films and tv, Is it possible? Are they real? What's the science behind them? And it's a. It's kind of humorous and alien abductions and stuff like that. So. So there's. There's anal action as well.

[B]

Wouldn't be a Paul Hill show without

[A]

some hot anal action. No, exactly. Bit of probing. So. Yeah, so that's. That's Friday. Yeah, I'm doing that on Friday.

[B]

All right then. No dinner time then.

[A]

No dinner time. I'm afraid I'm out. Yeah, I'm out. I'm afraid I'm nowhere.

[B]

Oh, it's a good excuse. I'll allow it.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm further away from Swindon, actually.

[B]

Direction as well.

[A]

Wrong direction. Everything.

[B]

Well, oh, well, if you lot are getting up to anything interesting spacey wise, why don't you email us at the show? Awesome. Astronomy.com. we're a bit low on the ground for emails and now that could be because our email inbox may be full, so they may not be coming through. Yeah, that is a distinct possibility. Or it might be that no one's emailing us. So it would be nice like if. So if you just drop us anything just so that we know that it's still working.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need. I have a feeling it might be full. I think we need to get the IT monkeys onto it.

[B]

Yeah, maybe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, yeah, try us. Try us this month. And then if we don't get anything, then, well, we know we've got issues. So, yeah, it's the show as well as masstronomy.com.

[A]

So come on then, let's talk. We're talking spearships and satellites and stuff. This. We are, yes, this episode. And of course it's quite. Well, I'm trying to get excited by it.

[B]

I think it's exciting.

[A]

I know it should be, but at the moment I'm having difficulty getting excited about it.

[B]

Yeah. So what Paul's talking about is, of course, Artemis 2, which we're not going to do a deep dive on this time because they haven't even rolled the rocket out of the vehicle assembly building as we're recording this. So it's a little bit early days for us to start getting into the nitty gritty of Artemis 2.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I just want to mention because of the time when this episode is going to go out, of the first lot of potential launch dates. There are launch dates for February, March and April. And so we just want to give you the February date so that you can kind of, you know, make a note of them. And a big shout out to Stuart Atkinson for this. I'm not sure if he listens to the podcast, but we're friends on Facebook and he put a big grid up about. These are all the times and dates for February for Artemis 2. And I was like, praise to Stuart because it saves me having to look it all up. So thank you very much.

[A]

He's great. Stuart. Akinson's brilliant.

[B]

He is. And he's written that book about Felicet, which is the. The French cat that went to space. And he's written all sorts of books and he writes all the time for like Skype night and all the different astronomy magazines and stuff. He's really great. He does lots of nice astrophotography because it's not, I would call, super complicated astrophotography and it makes you want to get involved and it makes you want to have a go at doing it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's.

[B]

If you don't like follow him or anything, start following him. He's great. Anyway, so Stuart is saying. So these are all for UK time, so universal time. They're all between 1 and 4 o' clock in the morning, our time, obviously. Of course, of course. But it does mean it'll be a nighttime launch, I think, even on the east coast. Because It'll be like 8:00pm, right, yeah,

[A]

it will be, yeah. It will be an evening even then. Yeah, well, yeah, well, Florida would probably be twilighty, but yeah, so.

[B]

But that will make for a nice show.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So 1 to 4am the launch windows for the 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th of February, rough timeline is they launch, reach the moon's vicinity, do the lunar fly by about three and a half days after launch. Splashdown then is four or five days after that. It all depends on exactly when they launch and things like that. But that's your rough guideline for your time and that is Artemis 2. The big thing to take away is there is no landing, it's just Apollo 8.

[A]

No, exactly. They're not, they're not going into lunar orbit. They're actually, they're doing. They're. They're just in a sort of flyby, heightened Earth orbit that's just encompasses the moon. It just flips around and comes back.

[B]

Yeah, they. Yeah, they're like. Yeah, just looping round.

[A]

Yeah, just looping around.

[B]

There will be first time a woman has been anywhere near the moon. First time a non American has been anywhere near the moon. Because there's a Canadian on board.

[A]

So there's a Canadian on board. A, A, absolutely. A. Although the way things are going, they'll probably jettison him or something like going sort of, you know.

[B]

I know, I know, I know. But that's it for Artemis 2. We're not going to dig into it. We'll wait until we've got a bit more of an idea of launch dates.

[A]

Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I'm trying to get excited about it at the moment, but it'll be one of those things once it launches.

[B]

Yeah, you'll be vital.

[A]

I will be excited. But the moment I'm just struggling to get the. Yeah, I tell. It's the lack of anything, any build up.

[B]

Actually there has been very little build up.

[A]

That's what I'm finding is it's a real lack of kind of anything to like, you know, imagine the build up to like Apollo 8 and Polo. The huge build up, build up. Some of the missions in the in since then there's been all that sort of build. There's really been nothing. A couple of, couple of YouTube videos in the last last few days and that's it.

[B]

And it's like when they were announcing like, oh, we're integrating the Orion capsule like a couple of months ago was like, are you okay?

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So it's like, it's like they're not almost. They're always like excited themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, yeah, I'm struggling to pick up the kind of. But you know, I need, I need whatever you've been snorting today to like get, get kind of Azerol.

[B]

No joking. It's. It's all the coffee from doing the experiments for the moon craters.

[A]

Yeah, it is. It's you just high on all the coffee for the moon. It's bonkers. But yeah, so hopefully it'll be exciting. But. Yeah, well, it will be exciting. Once it gets going, it'll be exciting.

[B]

The thing is as well, at the minute we haven't got timeline. It's like it could be February, it could be March, it could be April, but so it's a bit like, you know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, completely.

[B]

So I think once we've got a launch date, once that vehicle rolls out and we've got an approximate launch date, then I think the excitement will really start building.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Right then, so. Oh, but we're talking satellites this year.

[B]

Satellites is the theme for our Chitty Chatty show this month.

[A]

Yeah. And this is actually stemmed out of a paper that we were, we were sharing on our channel.

[B]

Yes. Which we will get to, but we'll do a bit of an intro on satellites and stuff to begin with and.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And we were sort of talking about it like, oh my God. So.

[B]

And then we're gonna end on a happy note as well. So like.

[A]

Oh, yeah, hopefully. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, we wanna drive.

[B]

Well, yeah, like it's gonna get really depressing in the middle, like. But the happy bit, the happy ending is coming oh man, I'm on fire tonight.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Right then, shall we begin with my favorite website? To you tell with satellites.

[A]

Yes, go on then, give us your favorite. Give your favorite website. What's your favorite website?

[B]

So I love this satellite website.

[A]

Satellite only fans.

[B]

Yeah, it's like all based on how shiny their solar panels are.

[A]

Look at me with my shiny solar

[B]

panels the size of their transponders. No, no, in all seriousness, this is ESA's space debris by the numbers. And it is a website that is periodically updated. They haven't actually updated it for a few months. The Last update was 21st August, October 2025. So it's not too out of date, you know, it's reasonably there.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it tells you, it just summarizes all the numbers you would want to know about satellites and space debris. So we'll go through the numbers. Okay. And some of them are shocking. So number of rocket launches since the start of the space age, 1957, you know, with of course the launch of Sputnik 1, about 7070.

[A]

That's mad.

[B]

Yes. Now that is excluding failures. So this is successful rocket launches.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

7,070.

[A]

That's bonkers, isn't it?

[B]

The number of satellites placed into orbit. Into Earth orbit, that is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By those rockets. Right. About 23,700.

[A]

What?

[B]

23,000. Nearly 24,000 satellites have been launched by 7,000 rockets. 24,000.

[A]

Bonkers.

[B]

It is bonkers. Yeah. You know, you think since 1957, 24,000 satellites have been launched.

[A]

I couldn't have guessed that in a month of Sundays.

[B]

It's wild, isn't it?

[A]

Right, that's wild.

[B]

Now, not all of those are still in space. Some of them have burnt up. Right?

[A]

They are.

[B]

The number though, that is still in space is about 16,000.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So two thirds, Two thirds of them are still up there. 16,000 satellites roughly above your head.

[A]

Yep, yep.

[B]

Now, of those 16,000 satellites, not all of them are working. There's a bunch of dead ones up there.

[A]

Yeah, right. Yep.

[B]

13,000 roughly are still working.

[A]

Jeez.

[B]

Now if you do the math, that MEANS there's about 3,000 dead satellites up there.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

3,000 bits of junk.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Well, not even. Well, we'll get on to the amount of bits of junk, but 3,000 dead satellites. Right. Now this is where we start getting into the space debris stuff. So go on then, because we've got the satellites, but we've also got debris. Right. Now debris is when you launch satellites, bits come off the rocket. You've got Dead rocket stages. Yeah, you've got. Collisions have happened, things like that. Right. It's all sorts of origins for debris. How many bits of debris we track. That's about 43,500 pieces that we track. 43,500 that we track. So that's insane. 43,500 pieces that we track. 13,000 functioning satellites, but 43,500 bits of debris that we're. We're tracking. So it's like.

[A]

That's mad.

[B]

It's mad. It's absolutely mad. Right?

[A]

Yeah, that's mad.

[B]

Now, right? How many breakups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events that have happened in space have resulted in fragmentation?

[A]

Right, Right. So this is like things have hit in, bumped into each other, blown up, things that have gone wrong. All deliberate, of course, like shooting tests.

[B]

Like tests.

[A]

So, yeah, so. And this is like. So how many events is this?

[B]

Events? This is not pieces of debris. This is how many events. Have a guess. Do you want to have a guess? Do you want to have a guess?

[A]

It's got to be a couple hundred.

[B]

650.

[A]

Get out of town.

[B]

650 events. That's mad. It is mad. Like, you think that how many years it's been since the start of the space age? Where are we now? 20? 26.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

1957. So it's 89 years, right?

[A]

No, 89 years. What are you talking about?

[B]

Christ alive.

[A]

Take your meds, dear.

[B]

Oh. Oh, my God. Hang on. Break to 75. Oh, my God, my brain. I'm looking at you, and my brain is just not mathing.

[A]

I'm just gonna let. I'm just gonna talk to you. You got the PhD. You've got to be able to like.

[B]

Well, this is the thing. The computer does the maths for me. Paul. I can't. My br. I just can't do it. 69. Not 89. Jesus Christ, Jen. Wow. Okay. That was bad. 69 years. 89. Christ alive. Wishing my life away. I am, right? It's 69 years. More than 650 episodes. It's 10 a year. That's like nearly one a month.

[A]

That is mad.

[B]

Like, it's wild right now. But then we get on to the really interesting numbers, right? As if the numbers we've discussed haven't been interesting enough. Right? We track 43,500 pieces, right?

[A]

Mm.

[B]

That's not what's up there. There's a hell of a lot more up there that we cannot track because it's too small.

[A]

It is too small. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

[B]

So here's based on statistical models. Here's what we think is actually up there.

[A]

Oh, God, no. This is gonna be, like, really depressing, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. All right. So greater than 10 centimeters. So what's that tennis ball size? Bit bigger than tennis ball, actually in it. 10cm?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Bit bigger than tennis ball, Something like that. Right?

[A]

I don't know. I don't like tennis.

[B]

Fair enough. 54,000.

[A]

54,000. Wow.

[B]

We're tracking 43,500. So there's about 10,000 pretty large chugs up there. We don't know where they are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, then between 1cm and 10cm. Okay. Right. So we're going from like a blueberry to a big tennis ball.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

1.2 million.

[A]

What?

[B]

1.2 million.

[A]

1.2. That's mad.

[B]

And then if you really want to sink low into your sofa, between a millimeter and a centimeter, we think it's about 140 million pieces.

[A]

Holy cow.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

That.

[B]

That low Earth orbit, which is where most of it is, is hecking busy.

[A]

It's. It's a mess.

[B]

It is a mess.

[A]

It's a big old dust. Dust. Just bonkers.

[B]

It's wild, isn't it? That's 140 million.

[A]

That's mad.

[B]

140 million pieces up there. That's greater than a millimeter in size.

[A]

Oh, that mean, like.

[B]

And you know what the thing is? It's those kind of tiny bits which do things like punch holes in the calendar arm on the International Space Station or render the capsules inoperable. It's like the small little chunks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're like little speeding bullets in space.

[A]

25,000 miles an hour plus. They're all like whizzing around up there.

[B]

Yeah. You do not want to be hit by anything up there. But it's wild, isn't it?

[A]

That is bonkers.

[B]

It is. So where is all this stuff?

[A]

Yeah, where is it? Where is it, Jenny? Where is it?

[B]

Where is all this stuff? Okay, so where's all the things? We have got a bunch of different orbits. We're not going to talk about all of them. We're going to focus on kind of like the Earth ones. Right. To do with, like, our planet. Not the, like the Lagrange points, for example. We're not going to sort of talk about those or anything. So geostationary orbit. That's the first one. Nice and easy to understand. Geo in Earth. And then stationary explains itself. They hover over one point above the surface of the Earth about 36,000km up and they're really good for telecommunication, for weather monitoring, things like that. And you only need a few of them to get global coverage. 3. Yeah, 3. And you got global coverage because they're orbiting so high up. So that's a geo stationary orbit.

[A]

So then we've got Elio, of course. Have we?

[B]

Low Earth orbit.

[A]

Low Earth orbit is the. It's actually quite a big space. It's actually quite a big space. I think, I think people get the impression it's really, really narrow, like we talk about, like literally just above the Earth. It's 2,000 kilometers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Out, basically. So it got the Van Allen belts. So it's less than 2,000km because the van Allen radiation belts, which screw everything up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's higher than 180km because of the atmosphere. So you're talking about this sort of belt between 180 and 2000 km, which is actually quite a big volume.

[B]

It is, because it's like a. The thing with low Earth orbit, right, is it's like it's a shell.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like geostationary orbit. Right. They like. It's over the equator, so it's like this little line over the equator.

[A]

Really? You can see them? Yeah, you can actually, if you've got a telescope, you can actually see them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You can actually see the line of satellites.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. They take the same amount of time to like orbit Earth as Earth does, to rotate.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is how they hover. But it's just like a really narrow band that you can put these in. Whereas low Earth orbit, it's like woohoo. You can have whatever angle you want, basically.

[A]

It's just. And they're these huge false things because of course it's. You talk about orbits like 90 minutes, things like that, so. And use for all sorts of things like imaging, reconnaissance and weather and communications, all Internet, everything, everything goes on in low Earth, but not in that geostationary sort of way. So in the same way that you got the sort of weather satellites up at GEO that kind of stare at the same point, the weather satellites are whizzing around looking at kind of other things and things like. So it's a real mishmash of stuff, but it's actually quite a big zone.

[B]

Yeah. And it's where the ISS is as well.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. But by the same token, not that big.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[A]

It's kind of like deceptive. It's like from a human scale. Yeah, it's quite bigger, but actually it's not that big.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what's next? What have we got next?

[B]

So next is like a subsection of low Earth orbit, essentially called polar orbit. So they're like a special type of low Earth orbit. And These are within 10 degrees of orbit over the poles.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So instead of sort of going, as you might think, nearest to the equator, these are going, like, up and down, as it were, around our planet, like that. And their advantage is that you get global coverage of Earth. So because Earth is rotating underneath you, but you're going up and down. Like, you will cover the entire planet over the course of many days.

[A]

Like, you will cover the planet scanning the. Yeah, the sort of plate, like a. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So for, like, scanning stuff, it's. It's really, really good. You know, if you're making, like, global maps and things like that. Polar orbits are great and they're. They're more recent developments because you. You have to get into them. You need to be at higher latitudes that you're launching from. So, like, when the UK develops, our launch capabilities will be very much focused on polar orbits. That'll be like our little niche is putting things.

[A]

Exactly, exactly. Then you've got sun synchronous orbits. Haven't we? Now, sun synchronous orbits, again is this sort of other subset. And they're kind of. There's 600 to 800 kilometers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're a polar orbit, so this. Up and down, if you like, but in sync with the sun. So they pass over the same spot on the Earth and at the same time every day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So.

[B]

So then, yeah, if you're trying to, like, understand how the weather, the climate is changing in, like, a particular area, or you're monitoring, like, deforestation or something, you remove the shadow effects from having different angles of sunlight.

[A]

Yes, yeah, exactly. So you get the same. The same image each time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Be it the same shadow or it's noon and you get the, you know, almost no shadow, whatever it is, you get the same. Or you. You pick a particular time, like dawn or something like that, you want a particularly long shadow. There's. There's various sort of things that you might want to do with that. Yeah, but, yeah, so that. That's a sort of. Again, another, like, sort of subset.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Of this. So it's that thing of low Earth orbit looks very big, but actually there are zones in it and there are particular areas where you'd want to be and where you want to orbit and where you want. Actually, there are bits are a bit emptier because you don't Orbit there.

[B]

Yeah, it's like polar orbits don't go particularly higher than about 1,000 kilometers. So they sort of miss out the top part, as it were.

[A]

Yeah, that means that all of those are in that zone. And so it's, it's areas of much more crowded than others. And this is, this is kind of where it gets, gets so difficult.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what's next?

[B]

So, so then we've got, we've done low Earth orbit and then there's medium Earth orbit.

[A]

You don't hear about this. You don't hear about this one very much.

[B]

No, you don't. So medium Earth orbit is in between the geostationary and the low Earth orbit. And so there's a lot of space where you don't want to be because of the Van Allen belts, but it is useful for navigation. So like ESA's Galileo satellites are in this region. But it's just a bit of a more difficult space space to occupy. It's more difficult to get to because it's so much higher up. So it's not as well populated.

[A]

And then highly eccentric orbits. So we haven't. High Earth orbit. Yeah, that's, that's not a thing essentially. That's. Yeah, this is just what GEO is in a way. This is highly eccentric orbits. Of course, the eccentricity in orbits is how long, if you like the orbit is and its axis. And so this is where you think you want to look at Earth from a really great distance. You want to look right back at like get the whole Earth in the image and things like all like good chunk of the Earth in the image and. Or whatever sensor it is you're pointing at the Earth. So you're looking at things like the interactions of solar wind with Earth's magnetosphere and things like that. So you want a little bit right out and it comes back in again.

[B]

Yeah, because like, you know, it's hard to stay in a massive orbit, but if you're just sort of swinging out and coming back, it's a lot easier to sort of get into that sort of orbit.

[A]

And the problem here is of course that these will dive into low Earth orbit and then go back out again. So this is actually these, these aren't immune to any of the issues in low Earth orbit because these dive in and then dive out again.

[B]

Yeah. So you've really got to know where everything is because you're diving in and out. So it getting busier is problematic for highly eccentric orbits.

[A]

It is. So it is, it is a complex picture up there. It's not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Kind of as simple as like, oh, there's stuff down here, stuff up there. That's it. Like a couple of levels. It's actually a really busy piece of space, like sort of. Yeah, I would say, I would just say airspace there. But of course it's not airspace. But, but it is like traffic, air traffic control things. It is, it is a very busy 3D kind of thing with lots of things flying around in all sorts of directions, doing their thing. So very much like air traffic control, except there's no pilots.

[B]

No.

[A]

And this is where it gets even more difficult.

[B]

Yes. Yeah. Because everything, everyone has to like, give up their data for saying where their satellites are and like the satellites all need their own sensors and you have to hope that nothing breaks.

[A]

Exactly, exactly. So when did this, when did this all begin? What's this all about? Go on, let's do a little bit of history. I love a bit of history.

[B]

Yeah, I like a bit of history too. And do you know what? We are not going to talk about Sputnik.

[A]

No.

[B]

Because everyone's going to be, ah. They're going to Talk about Sputnik 1. First satellite launch, October 1957. We're not going to do that. Right.

[A]

No.

[B]

Everyone's heard of Sputnik, but not everyone has heard about Vanguard 1. And I think Vanguard 1 is. I'm almost as impressive. I don't think anything is going to ever be as impressive as the first satellite. But it's up there right now. Vanguards 1 is what was the fourth satellite to achieve orbit? Right. So it was after Sputnik 1 and 2 and Explorer 1. Right. But the reason we're talking about Vanguard 1 is that it is still up there.

[A]

Yes. See and this is, this is one of those things about. I, I would say that that thing we mentioned it really, but that the, the early space race and you know, who was ahead, who was winning the space race. And there's always that, you know, oh, the Russians are winning the space race because they got there first. But I've constantly said over the years that actually, it's really not that simple, that the Russians are ahead. And actually the Americans were clearly technically far more advanced.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they were just there.

[B]

They were like pacing themselves a bit more.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, they didn't get the first satellite. They didn't get the first. But actually they did technically probably better missions.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Before. So Vanguard, the fact that it's still up there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Shows you what a brilliant orbit it was put in and what a brilliant spacecraft yeah.

[B]

And that's because it was launched on a much bigger rocket. Right. So this was a three stage rocket, which was novel and it, because it got put up into a higher orbit, it didn't have so much atmospheric drag and so its orbit has not decayed that much. And, you know, we're going to come to it later, but it's going to be up there for a while longer. Whereas Sputnik 12 and then Explorer 1, much smaller rockets, much lower orbits. Within a year they were all down again.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1440 orbits, I think Sputnik 1 did.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's a good astrocurrent question, isn't it?

[A]

Good, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, tiebreaker. I like that one. Anyway, the whole point of Vanguard 1 was what dual, really. It was helping scientists understand the space environment and its impact on satellites and then also using it to study our planet as well. So it was kind of like a twofold mission. It was launched on the Vanguard rocket. Very imaginative name, very confusing.

[A]

What should we call it?

[B]

I know, because it was Project Vanguard launching the Vanguard satellite on the Vanguard rocket. So Christ knows how they ever knew what they were talking about when everything seemed the same.

[A]

Bonkers, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. And it was the first satellite to be solar powered.

[A]

Wow. Was it really?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. They didn't know if it was going to work, but if it would work, then it would be revolutionary for satellites. And of course, that's how most satellites are powered these days. Now, it has a bit of a rocky start because the first launch attempt was on the 6th of December 1957. So we're talking a couple of months after Sputnik and Vanguard rocket is launching and all the engines fire up and then a few seconds afterwards they lose pressure, the whole thing falls. Falls back onto the launch pad, explodes and yeets the satellite across the fields. Right. Amazingly, that satellite, the original Vanguard one, survived.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Its antenna broke and, like its solar panels cracked, but the thing survived. And it's probably due to its size because it's about the size of a grapefruit. So it's really small, with symmetrically placed antennae, six of them, I believe, sticking out of it. And then like in between where these antennae are, there's little square panels, which are the solar panels. Right. All scattered around it. But it's really small. This, this thing. And this is actually in the National Air and Space Museum, or at least it was. I hope it's still on display. But you can go and see the original one. They've still Got it. So then a few Months later, on the 5th of February 1958, they try again. The rocket launches, gets away from the pads, which is progress, and then about a minute afterwards, it starts spiraling and breaks up and explodes. Right. So no good there, but it worked. On the third attempt, 17th of March 1968, the three stage rocket works. Vanguard 1, they're still calling it Vanguard 1 by the way. It's not like Vanguard 3, it's still Vanguard 1. Like they're just naming all of them Vanguard.

[A]

We're just gonna keep pretending, we're just gonna keep going. Yeah, it's not like the monkeys, they just kept changing the number of the monkeys.

[B]

Yeah, Vanguard won. The third gets up into space and it's on a really sort of these highly elliptical orbits. Right. Closest approach is 650km above the surface of the Earth. Furthest distance 4000km kilometers. And because it's symmetrically made, because they knew this thing was probably tumble around in space, because it's symmetrically made, it means it doesn't matter what it, what its orientation is, it's the atmospheric drag on it is always going to be the same. Yeah, quite clever thinking.

[A]

Yeah, it's clever.

[B]

And then based on the atmospheric drag, which they can infer based on how like its trajectory changes from the planned path, then they can start analyzing Earth's atmosphere. So things like the density and temperatures, things like that. And Vanguard 1, Vanguard 1's data, atmospheric data is still the basis. It's the bottom baseline of all of the weather and climate data that we have.

[A]

That's very cool.

[B]

It is very, very cool.

[A]

That's very cool. As a legacy. That's amazing.

[B]

It is, it is. So it all goes back to the Data from Vanguard 1.

[A]

That's very cool.

[B]

Yeah. And it did more than that because it helped us understand the shape of our planet, that it's not a perfect sphere, our orientation in space was better understood and also where our gravitational field varies because it can tell as it's passing over Earth, if things are a little bit denser, a little bit less dense, it changes its orbital path slightly and you can sort of infer all of that. So, yeah, pretty impressive for a little 1 1/2 kilogram grapefruit.

[A]

Tiny little thing, isn't it, you can hold in your hands. It's really small.

[B]

There's some great pictures of like people at the top of the rocket, you know, scientists, engineers, and they're all sort of crowded round. You got like the top of the rocket and then this teeny Tiny satellite just like cradled in the middle of it.

[A]

Yeah, it's really cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Tiny little thing.

[B]

Yeah. And because it's in this highly elliptical orbit and, you know, the atmospheric drag on it is very minimal, it's expected to stay up for at least another 200 years.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Wild, isn't it?

[A]

That is, unless it hits something.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And that's.

[B]

And that's the. The problem. Right. Which brings us nicely onto the. The main story, really, the breaking news. And so I think, before we get into that, I think it's just worth reminding us that we're at about, you know, as of recording, we're at about 13,000 functioning satellites up there. Right.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

As of January 2026, almost 9,500 of those as Darling.

[A]

And therein lies.

[B]

And therein lies the problem. They're all in low Earth orbit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And just for a bit of context, we're. So we're at 13,000 now, 9,400 Starlinks as of 2018. The end of 2018, before we launched any starlings. Well, I think we. Elon Musk, launched any Starlinks, add about 2,000 satellites in no Earth orbit. So from 1957 to 2018, 2,000.

[A]

2,000.

[B]

From 2019, then up to now, 9,400.

[A]

That's mad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And this is the problem because it's a massive free for all, essentially. Yeah, it is. It is Wild West. You can just. Anybody can basically put something up there.

[B]

This is, this is. And this is the thing is, you're right, is that, like, as long as you get approval from your government to launch, you can go, you can go. There's not really any limitations on how big your satellite can be, how bright it can be.

[A]

And it's not even that you're getting approval to put it in a particular orbit necessarily, it's just approval to launch.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's just people to get it off the ground and put it in space.

[B]

Yeah. Doesn't really matter what it's made of. There are some protected bands in, like the radio. So, like when you're communicating, some of the radio bands are protected for astronomy. But.

[A]

Yeah, and then this is, this is the problem because what we've. Now, if you've seen the film Gravity, you'll have an idea of what we mean by Kessler Syndrome or the Kessler Effect.

[B]

Or if you haven't seen gravity, if

[A]

you've seen Wall E. Yes, yes, exactly. And so this is the idea that satellites colliding with each other, like some spacecraft collide that creates more debris, that it's a cascade effect that then hits other satellites that break up into more debris, that break into more debris. And it. And eventually you get this sort of cloud effect of like masses of debris. Now gravity was a massive exaggeration, huge exaggeration for, for sort of horror effect. And in fact. So for the longest time there was the idea Castle effect was, was kind of theoretical and the idea that it's. If it happened, it would actually happen over several decades, over a hundred, two hundred years, it would slowly sort of happen and it. We could perhaps do something about it if, if a kind of. It was obviously starting. But it was, it was never a massive worry until now because it never looked like something that would kind of happen very quickly or happen very soon. But that. We've. We've now got a new paper that

[B]

does need to be peer reviews. We'll just put that out there.

[A]

Does peer review. But it has actually come from some pretty reputable people. Reputable people. This is, this is not just some, you know, backwater universe, look down the

[B]

pub on a Friday night going, I've got an idea.

[A]

This has come from some top men and some top women. This has come from some pretty big brains that have recalculated the whole Kessler syndrome thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's kind of changed a bit, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, they've called it crash clock. So crash being collision realization and significant harm clock. And it is. It's like a theoretical calculation in the, in the sense of, you know, how you can do like the Drake equation or the Sega equation about what's the chances of there being alien civilizations out there that we could contact. Right. So it's this like theoretical framework based on function facts and based on statistics and our knowledge and things like that. And what it is, is it's a timepiece to say how quickly satellites would collide if they lost the ability to avoid each other. So say a solar storm hits, Right. Fries the circuits of every single satellite out there. They are dead. Oh, how many days, weeks, months until they start colliding.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. Or it could be a great big computer glitch. Someone uploads a virus and it spreads throughout all the satellites and shuts them down.

[A]

Yeah. Or we just have some sort of fault.

[B]

Yeah, just.

[A]

Just a. Just it happens. We get some sort of big fault and we happens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we lose. Lose the ability to control the satellites, maneuver them from collisions and things like that.

[B]

In the same way, the iPad, all the satellites. Well, not the satellites, all the dishes on Earth, we can't talk to them, Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like some natural disaster or something. What happens? How many days do we have until the satellites start smashing into each other,

[A]

winding back the clock? Seven years ago, of course.

[B]

Mmm.

[A]

This was about four months, which is recoverable. Which is it? Very, very recoverable. It was thought that basically we could, we could have four months of kind of communication, silence, and it wouldn't, Wouldn't matter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That you could not talk to the satellite network for four months. And as long as you then regained communication, you would, you would, you wouldn't get a Kesla event because the satellites

[B]

wouldn't hit each other because they would be on their orbits. They wouldn't be that close to any other satellites. If they deviated a bit, it would be fine because there's big gaps in between them all.

[A]

And four months is very recoverable.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, even if you got some sort of, you know, big, big bit of coding bug that's screwed up the communications, whatever it is. Four months, you could build a whole flipping new dish and start, Start talking all the rest of it. It was fine.

[B]

Yeah, it was.

[A]

That's changed. Yes, that, that has changed. So since, as we said, we've gone from 2,000 satellites to, to 13. 13,000 satellites. That's changed a little bit. What is it now?

[B]

Less than three days?

[A]

Less than three days. If we lose communication with. And it doesn't even have to be all of the satellites. If we lose communication with a good chunk of the satellites in orbit. So say Starlink.

[B]

Starlink, yeah, get one.

[A]

Most of the satellites, we've got three days to get that back under control. Less than. Yeah, I think it's 2.84 days.

[B]

Yeah, it is. It's less than three days. And that is borderline long enough to get astronauts off the iss.

[A]

Yeah, that, that's basically. That's a race against time moment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When it was four months, it's like, okay, look, we can go and sit down, have a cup of coffee, get the engineers sorting, getting, you know, no panic, doesn't matter, we'll be fine. 2.84 days. That's. That's. Clock's ticking, people. No one gets any sleep. Yeah, we've got to get this back online in, like, 24 hours.

[B]

I don't even know if it would be solvable. No, honestly, like, less than three days to, say, bring up back all of the Starlink satellites. Yeah, I genuinely don't know.

[A]

And, and so this is, yeah, this is, this is dramatic change in, in the fortunes of low Earth orbit and space.

[B]

So how do we solve it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, you know, we have to start thinking about there have to be deorbiting rules. Right. That's the first bit, because we establish that there are thousands of defunct satellites up there that shouldn't be there. So there are rules in place now where your satellite has to either be deorbited or put into a graveyard orbit at the end of its life. But that never used to be the rule, which is why there's so many up there. So we at least have that rule. And it needs to be stuck to, because we cannot keep adding to the defunct satellites.

[A]

I mean, with other groups like OneWeb and the Chinese groups, and Amazon's about to stop putting all their bloody NETWORKS up there, 13,000 is going to look like a small number soon.

[B]

Oh, I know. And then we're going to be down to hours.

[A]

And then. Exactly. That Kesler problem. Down to just hours. We lose control of the network. We've literally got hours.

[B]

Yeah. It's just terrifying to think about, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A problem we've got with burning satellites up in the upper atmosphere is a lot of them are made of aluminium, or they at least have good chunks of their components made of aluminum. And as that burns up in the upper atmosphere, reacts with the oxygen up there, it forms alumina. And that is a compound that can deplete the ozone.

[A]

Yes. We talked about this just a few. A few months ago, didn't we?

[B]

Yep. And you also get carbon soot high up in the atmosphere and it persists there. And then that changes the albedo of Earth. It changes like how clouds are seeded and formed.

[A]

This is why we can't have anything nice.

[B]

Yeah. So the thing is, it's like burning them up in the atmosphere is not necessarily the solution either.

[A]

Nope.

[B]

What we need is we need to start removing the debris that's up there. That would help if we got rid of, like, all of the dead satellites. That would be a huge help. Right. And there's all sorts of plans of, like, cannibalizing satellites to make new ones. Because the thing is, like, when a satellite goes defunct, it's not that the whole thing is broken. It might be that it's run out of fuel, so why not go and refuel them?

[A]

Right? Yes.

[B]

Or one little panel has broken, one electronics panel has broken. So just go up and replace that or put a new antenna on it, or, you know, so there's ideas about actually. Okay, you'd have to launch a Few more satellites to do this, but fixing some of the broken ones and like repurposing them or taking the bits off them that work and making new satellites in space. So you're not really adding to the population up there, you're like recycling the population that's up there. There's ideas for making satellites out of wood as well. Kind of experimented with this, then wood burning up in the atmosphere is not a problem. You know, it's, it's, it's a lot more natural. I guess the carbon soot is still going to be a bit of an issue, but at least the alumna issue is sort of resolved largely there. But ultimately what we want is reusable satellites.

[A]

We do, we do, because we've got

[B]

at least partially reusable rockets. Right. And so why not reusable satellites? And this is where our favorite Welsh satellite company comes in, Space Forge, because they've had a huge achievement. They have huge achievement. And so this is our happy story that we are ending the episode on. This is Space Forge. They are trying to make the world's first reusable satellite, ForGasTar. And back in June, they launched ForGasTar 1. I was fortunate enough to go at the little launch party. They had to celebrate it. So that was a really, really exciting day. And what they want to do with forgestar is make semiconductors in space. Because when you're in the microgravity environment, the impurities don't kind of settle like they do when you manufacture on Earth. The impurities kind of evenly spread and it makes your semiconductors a lot more efficient and they're a lot better and it would allow more advanced computing and things like that. And so in order to do this, they need to kind of use plasma to make the semiconductors. And they successfully produced their first plasma in orbit.

[A]

Yes. All the pictures.

[B]

Yeah, it's really, really cool. And the thing is, the only other place in space that has, like, made semiconductors using plasma is on the International Space Station. Yeah, this is huge. They are the first, like automated, free floating, no people on board satellite in space that has fired up a plasma engine.

[A]

Cool. It's really cool.

[B]

It's wild. It's brilliant. So, you know, it's proof that you can do this autonomously, you know, and remotely. You don't need to do it on, like the space station or something like that. No. And although forgestar1 is not going to be recovered, it has to burn up in the atmosphere because they have to demonstrate that if something goes wrong, they know how to burn up in the atmosphere safely. So they, they weren't allowed to try and return forgest R1, but the hope is forgestar 2 they will try and return that. They're actually going to try making semiconductors on Forgestar 2 and then try and return it and collect the them.

[A]

So very cool.

[B]

Big congratulations for Space Forge.

[A]

Yeah, it's very cool and hopefully that's, that's the positive. That's the positive really.

[B]

And this is the thing, there are companies working on our too many satellites in space problem. Like people are working on it. So not all hope is lost. Yeah, there is, you know, there is hope still.

[A]

Oh, don't say that. We don't end on the positive here.

[B]

Exactly. But that does bring us to the end of the episode.

[A]

It does bring us to the end of the episode. And so do get in touch if you've got comments. Do get in touch because we want to know if the email system works.

[B]

Yeah, we really want to know if there's something wrong with the emails or maybe just no one listens to us anymore.

[A]

Basically is going to email us, surely.

[B]

Come on, Visto.

[A]

Come on. You always know. Contact us, contact us.

[B]

And then if we don't hear from

[A]

you, we know it's screwed up.

[B]

Yeah. So once again it's the show at

[A]

all st from ashtonme.com so until the beginning of next month, it's goodbye from Cydonia Base.

[B]

Bye Bye.

[C]

Awesome Astronomy is produced by Ralph Paul, Jen, John Damian and Dustin and is free to use with attribution. Theme music by Star Souls with stinger variation by Rin Jorgensen. We promote general science, astronomy, space exploration and rational thinking with more resources on our [e-mail] if you want us to read your thoughts and comments out on the show, send us your views, opinions, critiques or questions to the [e-mail] tweet us @awesome Astropod or give the awesome Astronomy Facebook page a like and leave your comments there. Thanks for listening. From Cydonia Base Head of Transmission.