Podcast: The satellite boom that threatens to clog the skies

Deep Tech is a new subscriber-only podcast that brings alive the people and ideas in our print magazine. Episodes are released every two weeks. We're making the first four installments, built around our 10 Breakthrough Technologies issue, available for free. Every two weeks, give or take, SpaceX puts another 60 Starlink communications satellites into low Earth orbit. Its initial goal is to launch 12,000 of these small mass-produced satellites--six times the number of operating satellites currently in orbit--with another 42,000 possibly to follow. Other companies such as Amazon, Telesat, and Planet are planning their own satellite "mega-constellations." The result could be a welter of new space-based services, from Internet connectivity to continuous mapping. But there's also growing attention to the potential downsides, including an increased risk of collisions that could end up littering low Earth orbit with dangerous debris and rendering it unusable. In this episode of Deep Tech, we hear from OneWeb founder Greg Wyler and science writer and former astrophysicist Ramin Skibba about efforts to mitigate the hazards.