October 2015
Space debris, Kessler Syndrome, and the unreasonable expectation of certainty
...render access to low Earth orbit all but impossible – a process commonly referred to as the ‘Kessler Syndrome’ after the debris scientist Donald Kessler – the reality is not likely to be on the scale of these predictions or the events depicted in the...
September 2020
Tackling space debris - a global priority
... in 1978 when NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler published his now famous Kessler Syndrome paper which, based on the NORAD data...LEO satellites will only increase the likelihood of the Kessler Syndrome. Add emerging space industries such as tourism and ...
May 2019
Wake-up call for debris creation in geostationary orbit
... 7th European Conference on Space Debris in 2017, it was concluded that in some regions of LEO we already have the Kessler Syndrome (collisional cascading) and it will now require active debris removal to reverse it. At times one has to wonder at the...
January 2023
Space sustainability imperative
... Indeed, some scientists say that we’re already living in a Kessler Syndrome scenario, which is playing out over a very long time ... Some scientists say that we’re already living in a Kessler Syndrome scenario, which is playing out over a very long...
March 2016
Space debris conundrum for international law makers
... General Assembly, Annex, International Legal Materials 1967, Vol. 6, 386-390. 2 The term Kessler Syndrome, named after Donald J. Kessler who first alerted to this devastating potential of debris proliferation in 1978, denotes a runaway cascade...
October 2015
Green cosmonautics: an ideal to strive for
... become impossible because the risk of collision with space debris will be too great. This is what the Kessler syndrome, also known as the cascading effect7, warns us about. Every orbit has its own “critical density” for...
