For decades, space safety rules assumed satellite reentries would stay rare. By early 2026, with over 70,000 megaconstellation spacecraft planned, that assumption has collapsed.
The next major accident involving falling space debris is not a matter of if, but when. And when it happens, the question will not be why a single satellite failed to burn up, but why no regulator was counting the cumulative risk from 70,000 of them.... [6070 chars]