PATRIOT PARK /Moscow Region/, August 18. /TASS/. About 70,000 spacecraft can be in near earth orbit by 2032, chief designer of the missile warning system and CEO of Vympel Company Sergey Boev told TASS at the Army-2022 Forum.
"The space objects occupancy rate is expanding, which creates a significant threat of collisions. The US, EU members, along with China and India currently announced the creation of their mega groups of hundreds and even thousands of spacecraft. According to our forecasts, the constellation of satellites in the low circumterrestrial orbit may increase within a decade to 70,000 operating spacecraft," Boev said.
Such numbers of functioning satellites will be accompanied by abundant space debris and will materially complicate the situation," the chief designer said.
"All of them require monitoring. There is a need to improve the capabilities of the domestic outer space monitoring system, expand the national space constellation, create small-size spacecraft and space monitoring equipment, and the opportunity to share information with other systems is required," he added.