A Falcon 9 lifts off earlier this month carrying a set of Amazon Project Kuiper broadband satellites. (credit: SpaceX)

The LEO toll road: How the constellation gold rush is paving over the path to the planets

by Vaibhav Chhimpa
Monday, August 18, 2025

The dawn of the 21st-century space age is being widely celebrated as an era of unprecedented access and democratization. Driven by reusable rockets and the promise of global connectivity, a new generation of commercial titans is launching thousands of satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), building vast megaconstellations that promise to reshape the global economy.[1] This LEO boom, championed by its architects as a venture to connect the unconnected and accelerate human progress, is presented as a net positive for all space endeavors.[3]

However, a closer examination of the underlying resource dynamics reveals a more complex and troubling reality. The contemporary LEO boom, far from being a rising tide that lifts all boats, is paradoxically leading to the consolidation of control over the most fundamental resources of spaceflight.[4]

Make no mistake: I support global connectivity. The dream of connecting the unconnected is noble. But not at the cost of blinding our telescopes, blocking our launch windows, or burning the roadmap to Mars.

This consolidation of control arises from the significant scope and rapid pace of commercial activity in a domain with limited resources and emerging governance, rather than being a traditional monopoly requiring trust-busting.[6] The primary actors, most notably SpaceX with its Starlink constellation and followed by competitors like OneWeb and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, are not merely launching satellites; they are consuming the essential commons of spaceflight: launch availability, radio frequency spectrum, and physical orbital space, at a rate that structurally sidelines and starves other vital endeavors.[6] The very mechanisms that enable the LEO revolution are creating profound barriers for those who do not fit its commercial model.

This essay argues that the LEO megaconstellation buildout is covertly monopolizing the foundational pillars of space access, creating a systemic resource scarcity that disproportionately impacts the next generation of interplanetary science missions.[8] This resource drain, occurring across launch manifests, regulatory dockets, and the electromagnetic spectrum, threatens to curtail humanity’s long-term exploratory ambitions.[6] The gold rush to LEO is effectively paving a toll road into orbit, and the price of passage for scientific discovery—missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond—is becoming prohibitively high.

The analysis will first deconstruct the three pillars of this covert monopoly: the launch capacity bottleneck, where a single company’s internal needs dictate global launch availability; the phenomenon of spectrum squatting and regulatory prioritization, where administrative frameworks are being reshaped to favor mass commercial deployment; and the tyranny of interference, where the physical and electronic environment of space is being degraded to a point that threatens the viability of sensitive scientific instruments. It will then connect this resource drain directly to the tangible threats facing planetary science, using official concerns documented by government agencies like NASA as primary evidence.[9] Finally, it will propose a necessary rebalancing of the space ecosystem, advocating for policy shifts to ensure that the path to the planets is not permanently paved over by the commercial imperatives of LEO.

Part 1: The three pillars of a covert monopoly

The emergent monopoly in space access is not the result of a single corporate strategy but the cumulative effect of dominance across three critical domains: launch services, regulatory frameworks, and the operational environment itself. Each pillar reinforces the others, creating a system that favors the high-cadence, mass-deployment model of LEO constellations while raising barriers for bespoke, one-off missions characteristic of scientific exploration.

Pillar 1: The launch capacity bottleneck

The most visible manifestation of this new paradigm is the overwhelming dominance of LEO constellation deployment on global launch manifests.[10] Access to space, the fundamental prerequisite for any mission, is increasingly dictated by the internal priorities of the world’s leading launch provider, which is also the world’s leading satellite operator.

An analysis of launch schedules for 2025 reveals a stark imbalance. The manifest for SpaceX, the provider responsible for the vast majority of US and global launch capacity, is overwhelmingly dedicated to its own Starlink constellation.[6] A typical month, such as July 2025, shows a relentless cadence of Starlink missions launching every few days from multiple pads.[6] Over the course of the year, dozens of Falcon 9 flights are scheduled to carry Starlink satellites, supplemented by launches for other LEO systems like the Space Development Agency’s military constellation and commercial customers such as Amazon’s Kuiper.[6]

In stark contrast, missions destined for beyond Earth orbit (BEO) are a rarity. The 2025 SpaceX manifest includes only a handful of such flights, including the Griffin Mission 1 to the Moon on a Falcon Heavy and the IMAP solar observatory on an escape trajectory.[6] While other providers like ULA and Arianespace have scientific missions on their books, their overall launch cadence is a small fraction of SpaceX’s, and they too are increasingly booking capacity for LEO constellations. The result is a global launch market where the supply of flights is consumed primarily by the deployment and replenishment of a few massive LEO networks. For a scientific mission, finding a launch slot is no longer just a matter of budget, but of competing against the relentless, high-priority schedule of a vertically integrated behemoth.

This manifest dominance is not accidental; it is the logical outcome of a powerful, closed economic loop. The business model of a vertically integrated company like SpaceX creates a self-reinforcing cycle where LEO constellation deployment is both the primary driver of revenue and the principal justification for future investment. According to financial analyses and company statements, the multi-billion-dollar revenue stream projected from Starlink is the primary engine funding the development of the next-generation Starship launch system.[14] This is not merely a matter of reinvesting profits; it is a strategic necessity. Elon Musk has explicitly stated that Starship must fly regularly to deploy the larger, second-generation Starlink V2 satellites, which are essential for the constellation’s future capacity and profitability and are too large to launch efficiently on the Falcon 9.[14]

This creates a system where the company’s primary launch customer is itself. External customers, particularly those with unique requirements like interplanetary science missions, become secondary priorities. Their missions must be slotted into a launch schedule that is fundamentally dictated by the operational and financial needs of the constellation. This dynamic inverts the traditional launch service model. Instead of a provider competing for diverse customer payloads, the provider’s own payload has become the anchor tenant of its manifest, with other missions fitting in where and when possible.

Even though no mission has been cancelled, that doesn’t mean everything’s fine. It means NASA is holding the line with duct tape and grit. While it is difficult to prove that a specific interplanetary mission has been outright cancelled due to launch availability, there is concrete evidence of systemic constraints creating significant opportunity costs and mission risks.

The most direct evidence comes from NASA itself. In an official filing to the FCC, the agency expressed explicit concern that the sheer density of SpaceX’s proposed Gen2 constellation could lead to the “loss of launch and reentry opportunities for NASA missions... as well as planned planetary missions such as Europa Clipper.”[9] This is not a hypothetical fear but a documented warning from the world’s leading space agency that a commercial internet service could physically and logistically obstruct its path to the outer solar system. For missions with narrow, unchangeable launch windows dictated by celestial mechanics, such a bottleneck introduces unacceptable risk and potential delays of years.

This structural problem is mirrored in Europe. The European Space Agency (ESA) has faced a severe “launcher crisis” due to delays with its new Ariane 6 rocket, the retirement of Ariane 5, and the loss of access to Russian Soyuz rockets. This has left Europe without independent access to space for a period, forcing it to turn to its primary competitor, SpaceX. In an unprecedented move, ESA booked Falcon 9 launches for its Euclid space telescope and the Hera planetary defense mission, missions that would have otherwise flown on European or Soyuz rockets.[1] While this demonstrates a pragmatic solution, it underscores a fundamental vulnerability: when domestic options fail, the scientific community must compete for slots on a manifest dominated by a commercial constellation’s deployment schedule.

Furthermore, the LEO boom has not, as is often claimed, made all of space cheaper and more accessible. It has created a stark bifurcation in space access. The cost to launch to LEO has been driven down dramatically by the economies of scale and high cadence demanded by constellation deployment. A dedicated Falcon 9 launch costs approximately $2,940 per kilogram to LEO.[18] However, this cost revolution does not extend uniformly to destinations beyond Earth’s orbit. The cost to send a payload to Mars on the same company’s Falcon Heavy rocket is estimated at around $5,800 per kilogram, nearly four times the per-kilogram cost to LEO on that same vehicle (about $1,500 per kilogram,).[7]

This price differential is a direct consequence of a business model optimized for a different purpose. The LEO market is a high-volume, mass-production logistics operation. Interplanetary science missions are bespoke, low-volume, and highly specialized. They do not benefit from the same economies of scale and are therefore priced and prioritized as a niche market that must find its place within a system built to serve other needs. The “hidden cost” is the uncertainty and risk injected into the mission design phase, where planners must account for a volatile launch market in which they are not the priority customer.

Pillar 2: Spectrum squatting and regulatory prioritization

The second pillar of this covert monopoly is the domination of the administrative and regulatory frameworks that govern space activities. Access to space is not just about rockets; it is about licenses and the right to use the radio frequency spectrum. Here too, the scale and influence of LEO megaconstellations are reshaping the landscape to their benefit, creating new barriers for other users.

At the international level, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is responsible for coordinating the use of the radio spectrum to prevent interference. For nongeostationary orbit (NGSO) systems, which include all LEO constellations, the ITU has historically operated on a “first-come, first-served” basis.[5] This principle, while simple, has inadvertently incentivized a speculative land grab for orbital and spectrum resources. Well-resourced companies and the nations that sponsor them have rushed to submit filings for immense “paper constellations,” reserving rights to orbital slots and frequencies far in excess of their actual ability to deploy satellites.[2]

This practice has led to absurd outcomes, such as the government of Rwanda filing with the ITU on behalf of a startup for a constellation of 337,320 satellites, dubbed “Cinnamon-937”.[2] SpaceX itself has filed for tens of thousands of satellites beyond its initial licensed constellation, a move critics argue was designed to “flood” the ITU and preemptively block out competitors.[20] When the ITU introduced deployment milestones in 2019, it was meant to stop these paper constellations. But it created a perverse incentive: launch fast, even if the satellites are non-operational, just to keep the license.[5] This system of speculative filing creates a dense fog of uncertainty and complexity, making it exceedingly difficult for later entrants, such as scientific missions with well-defined but non-commercial needs, to navigate the process and secure the resources they require.

Domestically in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is actively reengineering its regulatory processes to favor the rapid deployment of large LEO constellations.[22] This is not just a matter of reducing red tape; it is an explicit geostrategic policy. Policymakers in Washington view the LEO broadband competition as a critical race against China and are therefore tailoring regulations to help US companies like SpaceX and Amazon scale faster and win that race.[22]

Proposed policies include the implementation of “shot clocks” that would force the FCC to make faster decisions on satellite applications, and a simplification of spectrum-sharing rules that benefits new entrants.[22] While intended to boost American competitiveness, this approach creates a two-tiered system. Large, standardized commercial constellations are put on a regulatory fast track. Scientific missions, which often have unique, complex, and non-standard operational requirements, are ill-suited to this high-speed, one-size-fits-all approval process. They risk being sidelined or facing significant delays as the regulator’s attention and resources are consumed by the massive, high-priority commercial applications.

Once spectrum is allocated, the commercial stakes are so high that constellation operators defend it with immense political and legal force. The conflict over the 12-gigahertz band provides a stark example. When terrestrial 5G providers proposed sharing the band, SpaceX launched a major lobbying campaign, arguing that such a move would cause “harmful interference 77% of the time’ and render the Starlink service “unusable” for most Americans.[25] It accused its competitors of submitting “faulty” and “intentionally misleading” analyses to the FCC.[25] This aggressive defense demonstrates the zero-sum mentality that now governs spectrum allocation. Any other service, including a scientific one, that might be perceived as a potential source of interference to a multi-billion-dollar commercial network will face a formidable wall of opposition, backed by vast financial and political resources.

The cumulative effect of these regulatory trends is the creation of “path dependency”: a state where decisions made today lock in a specific trajectory for the future that becomes extraordinarily difficult to change. By prioritizing the rapid buildout of a few massive LEO constellations for economic and geopolitical reasons, regulators at the ITU and FCC are not just allocating resources; they are fundamentally re-engineering the structure of space access.[22] For instance, a recent FCC rule change represents a paradigm shift: it allows new satellite constellations to cause a specified, measurable level of service degradation (up to 3%) to incumbent operators in shared bands.[22] This explicitly favors large, new entrants over established players and codifies interference as an acceptable, manageable part of the orbital environment.

Once tens of thousands of satellites are operating under this new framework, and a global customer base relies on them, reversing course becomes a practical and political impossibility. Future scientific missions that require pristine, interference-free spectrum or specific, uncongested orbital access will find themselves in an untenable position. They will not be arguing against a single competing application, but against an entrenched, operational, multi-trillion-dollar global infrastructure that has been sanctioned and protected by the world’s most powerful regulators. The “regulatory bandwidth” is not just being consumed; it is being permanently reconfigured. A multilane superhighway is being paved for LEO commercial traffic with few, if any, off-ramps being built for scientific exploration.

The pressure on orbital and spectrum resources is not solely a Western phenomenon. China is aggressively pursuing its own mega-constellation ambitions, creating a parallel system that operates largely outside of Western regulatory frameworks and adds a new dimension to the global tragedy of the commons.[27] This is not about singling out one nation, but about recognizing that the current system of governance is failing on a global scale.

China’s primary state-backed effort is the Guowang, or “National Network,” constellation, a plan to deploy nearly 13,000 satellites into LEO.[30] This is supplemented by other ambitious projects like the G60 Starlink (now known as Qianfan or “Thousand Sails”), which aims for over 15,000 satellites.[32]32 These programs are driven by the same goals of economic development and strategic advantage that motivate their Western counterparts, but they operate under a different set of rules.[10]

While Western companies must navigate the complex and often public processes of the FCC and ITU, China’s state-owned and state-backed enterprises are directed by national industrial policy, with regulatory bodies like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) facilitating their path to orbit.[35] This creates a dual challenge. First, there is the direct physical impact of tens of thousands of additional satellites congesting the same orbital shells and using similar frequency bands, dramatically increasing the global risk of collision and interference. Second, there is a regulatory asymmetry. Without a binding international framework for space traffic management and spectrum use that applies equally to all major actors, we are left with regional blocs operating under different assumptions and with no effective mechanism for deconfliction.[28]

This global competition actually strengthens the core argument of this paper. The problem is not one company or one country, but a systemic failure of governance. The “first-come, first-served” approach to orbital resources has triggered a global land rush. Without robust, multilateral rules that are binding on all nations, we risk a future where LEO is rendered unusable by a combination of Western commercial deployments and Chinese state-backed projects, with scientific missions caught in the crossfire.

Pillar 3: The tyranny of physical and electronic interference

The final pillar of this covert monopoly is the degradation of the space environment itself. The LEO boom is not just consuming abstract resources like launch slots and spectrum licenses; it is fundamentally altering the physical and electromagnetic character of near-Earth space, creating a noisy, cluttered, and hazardous environment that poses an existential threat to certain types of scientific activity.

The business model of LEO megaconstellations relies on thousands of satellites with remarkably short operational lifespans, typically around five years.[38] This necessitates a constant cycle of replacement, meaning a continuous stream of new launches and deorbiting spacecraft. This activity dramatically increases the population of objects in LEO and, consequently, the risk of collisions. As of 2024, surveillance networks were tracking some 35,000 objects larger than ten centimeters, but the number of debris objects larger than one centimeter, capable of causing catastrophic damage to an operational satellite, is estimated to be more than one million.[40]40

International guidelines for mitigating the creation of new debris, such as those developed by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) and endorsed by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), do exist.[41] However, these guidelines are voluntary, and compliance is far from universal or sufficient to stabilize the debris environment.[40] The sheer number of new satellites being launched overwhelms the positive effects of improved mitigation practices.[40] This raises the specter of the Kessler Syndrome, a scenario in which the density of objects in an orbit becomes so high that collisions create a cascading chain reaction of new debris, rendering that orbit unusable for generations.[38] This is a threat to all space operations, but it is a particularly grave danger for long-duration, high-value, irreplaceable scientific assets like the Hubble Space Telescope or the International Space Station.

A more immediate and insidious threat comes from radiofrequency interference (RFI). A growing body of research from multiple independent observatories has now confirmed that SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are “leaking” significant, unintended radio emissions from their onboard electronics.[44] This is not the intended communication signal, but a form of electronic pollution. Critically, this leakage has been detected in frequency bands between 150.05 and 153 megahertz, a slice of the spectrum that is internationally protected and reserved exclusively for radio astronomy.[44]

The intensity of this leaked radiation is staggering. Researchers have found that the signals are up to seven orders of magnitude—ten million times—brighter than the faint cosmic signals that radio telescopes are designed to detect.[45] This level of interference effectively blinds groundbased telescopes in these bands, drowning out the whispers from the early universe and jeopardizing research into everything from the formation of the first stars to the magnetic fields of exoplanets.[44] Because these emissions are classified as “unintentional,” they currently exist in a legal gray area. ITU regulations, which strictly govern deliberate transmissions in protected bands, do not currently apply, leaving no clear legal recourse to stop the pollution.[44]

This situation is forcing a dangerous normalization of a degraded space environment. The prevailing attitude among commercial operators and even some regulators is shifting from a paradigm of preventing interference to one of “managing” it. The FCC’s new rules, which explicitly permit a certain percentage of service degradation for incumbent satellite operators, are a clear example of this shift.[22] In the world of astronomy, the burden of adaptation is being placed squarely on the shoulders of the scientific community. Astronomers are now forced to spend precious time and resources developing complex software filters to try and subtract the overwhelming satellite noise from their data.[44] They are also resorting to negotiating special agreements with operators to have satellites temporarily disabled when they fly over a specific observatory: a solution that is not scalable, places the onus on the victim of the pollution, and is only available to the world’s largest and most influential observatories.[45]

This establishes a new baseline assumption: the “natural” state of the orbital environment is no longer quiet, but inherently noisy. While a commercial broadband service might be able to tolerate a slightly degraded signal, many forms of science cannot. Deep space communication and radio astronomy depend on detecting signals at the absolute limits of physics, with signal-to-noise ratios that leave no margin for error. They cannot simply “manage” a ten-million-fold increase in background noise. The commercial imperative of the LEO boom is thus redefining the very physical environment in which science must be conducted, making some of it difficult and some of it simply impossible.

Part 2: The unseen victim: Starving interplanetary science

The monopolization of space resources by the LEO constellation boom is not an abstract economic or regulatory concern. It has direct, tangible, and damaging consequences for the future of scientific exploration. The most compelling evidence of this harm comes not from academic speculation, but from the documented, official concerns of the very agency tasked with leading humanity’s journey to the planets: NASA.

The NASA Memos: A Direct Warning from the Scientific Frontier

The “smoking gun” in the case against the unchecked expansion of LEO constellations can be found in NASA’s official filings to the FCC concerning SpaceX’s application for its second-generation (Gen2) Starlink network.[9]9 In a series of letters and comments submitted during the regulatory review process, NASA laid out a catalogue of grave concerns, transforming the debate from one of hypothetical risks to one of documented, operational threats to its core missions.[9]9 These are not the fears of outside observers; they are the sober warnings of the world’s preeminent space agency about the viability of its scientific and human exploration programs in a future dominated by megaconstellations.

NASA’s documented concerns paint a comprehensive picture of a scientific enterprise under siege from every direction:

• Loss of launch opportunities: In perhaps its most direct statement on the matter, NASA warned that the sheer physical density of the proposed 30,000-satellite constellation could lead to the “loss of launch and reentry opportunities for NASA missions to the ISS as well as planned planetary missions such as Europa Clipper.”[9]9 This is a stunning admission: the world’s premier space science agency is concerned that a commercial internet service will physically obstruct its path to the outer solar system. For time-sensitive interplanetary missions, which have narrow launch windows dictated by celestial mechanics, such a blockage could mean delays of years or even the cancellation of an entire mission.
• Compromised planetary defense: NASA holds a congressional mandate to detect, track, and characterize near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could pose an existential threat to Earth. The agency expressed profound concern that the Gen2 constellation would severely hamper this critical mission. NASA estimated that with 30,000 new satellites, “there could be a Starlink satellite in every asteroid survey image taken” by its wide-field ground-based telescopes. This constant streaking and interference would degrade the quality of observations and could “impact NASA’s ability to fulfill its Congressional mandate.”[9]
• Degradation of flagship observatories: The threat extends to assets already in orbit. NASA stated that the new satellites, many of which would orbit above the Hubble Space Telescope, “could double the number of degraded Hubble images” by leaving bright streaks of reflected sunlight across the telescope’s sensitive detectors.[9] This would effectively reduce the scientific return and operational efficiency of one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built.
• Overwhelmed collision avoidance systems: While acknowledging the advanced propulsive capabilities of Starlink satellites, NASA explicitly rejected the assumption of perfect safety. The agency stated that “with a constellation of this size, error-free systems and a collision risk of zero should not be assumed.”[9] It raised serious questions about the scalability of autonomous collision avoidance systems, particularly in a future environment where multiple constellations from different operators, each with its own proprietary avoidance logic, must interact without a central traffic controller.[9]

These official statements serve as the evidentiary centerpiece of this report’s thesis, moving the argument from inference to documented fact. The following table summarizes NASA’s primary concerns, illustrating the direct line from LEO constellation deployment to the endangerment of critical scientific and national security space activities.

Table 1: NASA’s official concerns regarding the SpaceX Gen2 constellation

Threatening the lifeline: The Deep Space Network

Beyond the immediate hazards of collision and optical interference, the LEO boom poses a more insidious threat to the very lifeline of interplanetary exploration: the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN is a global network of massive, highly sensitive radio antennas in California, Spain, and Australia that serves as humanity’s sole communications link to missions venturing beyond Earth’s immediate neighborhood.[48] It is what allows scientists to receive data from the James Webb Space Telescope, send commands to the Perseverance rover on Mars, and track the Voyager probes as they journey through interstellar space.[49]

The DSN operates by detecting incredibly faint radio signals across vast distances. To do this, it uses internationally allocated and protected frequency bands, primarily in the S-band, X-band, and Ka-band, that are designated for “Space Research”.[49] The system’s receivers are cooled to near absolute zero to minimize thermal noise, all in an effort to pick a whisper of a signal out of the cosmic background.

The documented “leakage” of powerful, unintended RFI from Starlink satellites into protected radio astronomy bands sets a deeply alarming precedent.[44] While this leakage has not yet been shown to directly impact DSN frequencies, the underlying principle is what matters. The intense commercial and political pressure for more spectrum, exemplified by the fight over the 12-gigahertz band, creates a constant threat of encroachment on bands adjacent to or even overlapping with those used by the DSN.[25] In future regulatory battles, the designation “Space Research” may not carry the same political or economic weight as a multi-billion-dollar global broadband service with millions of subscribers.

The stakes could not be higher. For a commercial internet service, interference might mean a slower video stream or a dropped connection. For the DSN, interference could mean the permanent loss of contact with a multi-billion-dollar, one-of-a-kind scientific asset. The signal-to-noise ratio for a probe at Saturn or beyond is already at the absolute limit of what is physically possible. There is no margin for a newly degraded, noisy radio environment. The electronic pollution generated by the LEO boom threatens to sever our connection to the outer solar system.

The opportunity cost: The missions that will never fly

The most profound cost of the LEO constellation era may be the one that is hardest to quantify: the ambitious scientific missions that will never leave the drawing board. The resource scarcity and environmental degradation created by the LEO boom have a chilling effect on the conception and proposal of new interplanetary endeavors. Scientists, engineers, and mission planners at NASA, ESA, and universities around the world must now contend with a fundamentally more hostile and constrained environment.

When designing a new mission to an outer planet or an asteroid, they must now factor in a congested launch manifest dominated by commercial priorities, a debris-filled orbital environment that increases mission risk, and a polluted radio spectrum that complicates communications and data return. Each of these factors adds cost, complexity, and risk to any proposed mission, making it harder to secure funding and approval.

Furthermore, the entire space ecosystem, from venture capital and private investment to engineering talent and university curricula, is being pulled into the powerful gravitational field of the LEO commercial market.[53] The industry is optimizing itself for the mass production, deployment, and operation of standardized, short-lifespan commercial satellites.[9] This paradigm is fundamentally antithetical to the needs of scientific exploration, which relies on bespoke, high-reliability, long-duration spacecraft designed for one-of-a-kind missions.[48] The stringent and costly planetary protection requirements for any mission that could potentially contact a body like Mars or Europa add yet another layer of complexity and expense that LEO constellations do not face, creating an even more unlevel playing field.[56]

The ultimate cost, therefore, is not just in the missions that are delayed or that cost more than they should. It is in the bold, high-risk, high-reward missions of discovery that are never even proposed because the barriers to entry, the cost of launch, the availability of a launch slot, and the risk of operating in a congested and noisy environment have simply become too high. The gold rush to LEO is consuming the resources that would have fueled the next generation of exploration. The table below starkly contrasts the two diverging models of space activity, highlighting the systemic disadvantages now faced by the scientific community.

Table 2: The widening gulf: LEO commercial vs. interplanetary science

Conclusion: Rebalancing the commons for a multi-destination future

The rapid expansion of LEO megaconstellations, driven by immense commercial potential and fueled by geopolitical competition, represents a fundamental paradigm shift in humanity’s use of space. While this revolution promises transformative benefits in global communications, it has inadvertently created a system of resource monopolization that threatens to foreclose other futures. By dominating launch capacity, overwhelming and reshaping regulatory frameworks, and polluting the orbital environment with physical and electronic debris, this new commercial model is systematically marginalizing and starving the enterprise of interplanetary science. The path to the planets, once a frontier of collective human ambition, is being paved over by a commercial toll road to LEO.

The evidence presented in this analysis, culminating in direct warnings from NASA, demonstrates that this is not a distant or hypothetical problem. The current governance model for space, largely based on a “first-come, first-served” principle for resources and voluntary, often-ignored guidelines for environmental protection, is dangerously inadequate for the realities of the modern space age.[6] It was designed for a world of a few state actors launching a handful of satellites per year, not a world of private companies launching thousands. A paradigm shift is urgently needed, moving from a posture of passively allocating resources and merely mitigating the worst harms to one of proactively and holistically managing the orbital commons for a diversity of uses. If we are to ensure a multi-destination future for humanity, we must rebalance our priorities.

To that end, the following policy recommendations are proposed:

1. Holistic spectrum and orbit management: National regulators like the FCC and international bodies like the ITU must evolve from being passive, reactive allocators to active, strategic managers of the space environment. The flawed “first-come, first-served” model for NGSO systems, which incentivizes speculative squatting on resources, must be replaced with a framework that explicitly weighs the unique, non-commercial, and often irreplaceable value of scientific missions against commercial interests.[19] This could involve the formal reservation of specific “quiet” frequency bands or the allocation of dedicated launch windows for scientific and planetary defense missions, ensuring they are not crowded out by commercial traffic.
2. Mandatory resource impact assessments: The burden of proof must be shifted. Instead of the scientific community having to prove harm after the fact, any application for a new megaconstellation or a major expansion of an existing one should be required to include a comprehensive “Space Environment Impact Study.” This assessment must go far beyond current requirements to quantitatively model the cumulative impact of the proposed system on: launch availability and access for other sectors; collision risk and debris generation across all populated orbits; and radio frequency interference in both the allocated commercial bands and adjacent bands used for science. This would compel applicants to demonstrate that their system will not unduly harm the broader space ecosystem and would provide regulators with the data needed to make informed, balanced decisions.
3. Enshrining science as a strategic priority: National and international space policies must be updated to explicitly recognize that while LEO broadband is an important economic and social goal, irreplaceable scientific activities like deep space exploration, radio astronomy, and planetary defense constitute a vital strategic interest for all of humanity. As experts like astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell have warned, we urgently need a “highway code for outer space” before the orbital commons become congested and polluted to the point of being unusable for generations.[58] This recognition must be backed by binding international agreements and domestic regulations that guarantee the resources necessary for these missions to continue.

I began this research hoping to understand the economics of megaconstellations. I did not expect to find that the future of planetary science might depend on a regulatory loophole in Geneva or a pricing decision in Hawthorne. The gold rush to LEO offers tremendous promise, but it must not become a permanent roadblock that prevents us from reaching for the rest of the universe.

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Vaibhav Chhimpa is an emerging space analyst and physics student from India, focusing on the tradeoffs between LEO commercialization and interplanetary science. His background in computational fluid dynamics modeling and electromagnetic systems informs his technical critiques of orbital sustainability. He has contributed to NASA Open Science initiatives and collaborates with academic mentors on space-environment research.

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