“Astronomers – and casual viewers of the night sky – must expect a future in which the low Earth orbit population includes tens of thousands of relatively large satellites,” Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics warned in a 2020 study. “The impacts will be significant for certain types of observation, certain observatories and at certain times of year.” Until a couple years ago, humanity had launched fewer than 10,000 objects into orbit since the start of the Space Age. However, with the advent of low-cost commercial rocket launch technology — which has seen the price per pound of launching cargo fall from $24,800 during the Shuttle era to just $1,240 today — the rate at which we put satellites into orbit is set to increase exponentially.