Large Constellations of Small Satellites: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Illegal
David A. Koplow [This essay is available in PDF at this link] The most exciting and far-reaching contemporary developments regarding human activities in outer space arise from the recent drastic reductions in the costs of building, launching, and operating satellites, and from the concomitant sudden emergence of large constellations of small, inexpensive, privately-owned spacecraft. These satellites—devoted to highly remunerative functions such as communications (bringing high-speed, affordable internet to underserved constituencies), remote sensing (facilitating land use planning, weather forecasting, and emergency search and rescue), and support for military operations (in Ukraine and elsewhere)—already number in the thousands and will soon reach the […]

