SpaceX set to make major changes amid growing fears of 'Kessler syndrome'

Space is seemingly an endless space that remains largely unoccupied, yet one concerning theory proposed by a NASA scientist has prompted SpaceX to make major changes to how it operates thousands of its satellites.

It has been nearly seven decades since the first artificial satellite was launched into space, and since then thousands have made their home in Earth's orbit, providing vital services that most people take for granted every day.

These launches have increased exponentially over the past decade as companies like SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, aim to dramatically increase network coverage across the world — most notably with the aforementioned company's Starlink project.

This allows people to access internet in areas that would be previously impossible, and it's helped massively in situations involving natural disasters and even war-torn areas.

However, providing that coverage does come with an extreme risk that SpaceX is only now looking to tackle, as it's having to make major changes to how it operates its constellations to avoid a major issue.

SpaceX has around 9,400 active satellites in orbit, but they now have to consider the risk of a dangerous possibility (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

As reported by Supercar Blondie, SpaceX has revealed that it's making changes to the roughly 9,400 satellites that it currently has orbiting around our planet, and it's all to do with what's known as the Kessler syndrome.

Proposed initially in 1978 by NASA scientist Donald Kessler, this syndrome refers to a terrifying chain reaction that would see objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) collide with each other at an increasing rate due to the growing amount of debris that clutters the area.

It's particularly worrying due to how it would continue to spread with each new collision, as that would cause the orbiting objects to splinter off into smaller pieces of debris that would then further increase the risk of hitting additional objects.

As you can imagine this is something that SpaceX will want to avoid at all costs, yet maintaining its operations and adding further satellites to its already strong lineup naturally increases the risk.

SpaceX is lowering the altitude of around half of its active satellites to avoid the risk of collisions (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

In order to reduce the chances of triggering the Kessler syndrome, SpaceX vice president Michael Nicolls has revealed plans from the company to reduce roughly half of its satellites in orbit this year.

This would move them from an altitude of 550 kilometers to roughly 480 kilometers, removing the risk that they will collide with the growing number of objects currently in orbit.

Additionally, this lower altitude also reduces the risk of debris if a satellite was to fall from orbit, as the atmosphere causes an increased amount of drag which then burns up the satellite faster.