No, Kessler syndrome is pretty unlikely in this case. All of the guilty satellites are in Molniya orbits. Debris from destroying them would not greatly effect geosynchronous orbit or the low earth orbits used by Starlink.
reply> especially with all the stuff that SpaceX has put into orbit in recent years
replyI've heard this repeated a lot but I've never seen anyone do the maths. StarLink satellites are all in very low orbits, so intuitively it seems like most debris from a collision would just end up deorbiting.
LEO is crowded enough (mostly with Starlink) that satellites have to actively maneuver to avoid collisions [1]. There's research [2] arguing that we're probably already in runaway territory in some orbits — that is, debris from 1 collision likely produces more than one secondary collision — we're just way over on the left of the hockey stick curve. A bit of bad luck, or two megaconstellations that don't perfectly coordinate their operations with each other, could move us to the right pretty quickly.
reply[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643
[2] https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/3...
90% of starlink satellites are >400km in altitude. They aren't in very low earth orbits where that intuition even might be correct. They're above the space station.
replyI've definitely seen math done - though I'd have to dig it up again. I think in FAA filings.
I've thought about this before - do you actually need to "shoot it down" (make it explode)? What if you just nudge it a little and either make it spin or change its orbit? If your missile can reach the satellite then these seem like things that should be possible, no?
replyDepends, if you nudge it only a little, its own onboard stabilizers / thrusters should be able to correct it. It'd have to be more than its own systems can correct for.
replyThere are tug boat style satellites now, one could grab it and force it to Earth.
replyNudge it long enough to deplete it's fuel reserves? Or just wrap the emitting antenna in tin foil...
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