What If Every Satellite Stopped Working? | Unveiled

What if Every Satellite Stopped Working?

There are thousands of satellites currently orbiting Earth and providing vital services to humanity, and thousands more that are still up there but aren’t operational any longer. Everything from communication to transportation to predicting the weather and even banking relies on the satellite network in some form or another. But is our reliance on satellites one of our greatest weaknesses?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what if every satellite stopped working?

Since the Soviet Union sent the first satellite to space in 1957, our reliance on outer space for infrastructure has only grown, increasing exponentially with the dawn of the information age. Of the thousands of operational satellites, the vast majority belong to the USA, with China in second place though with significantly fewer. We depend on satellites for the transmission of large amounts of data; the study of Earth’s climate and ecosystem; navigation in the global freight and transportation industry; and for military purposes like coordinating troop movements and operations. There are even amateur satellite radio operators who make use of the satellite network as a hobby.

But just how fragile is this network? Well, there are a few scenarios that could put the global satellite infrastructure in danger. The first is an enormous solar flare the likes of which were last seen on Earth in 1859 during the Carrington Event. We do get solar flares regularly, but very rarely ones of this nature, which was so powerful it caused auroras to appear across the planet. Thankfully since this was the mid-19th century, the disruption was minimal; the only piece of mass communication technology it affected were telegraph systems. Today, it would be a very different story; a solar storm of this size could knock out not only Earth’s satellites, but also many pieces of equipment on the planet’s surface, including radio equipment, electrical wires, and other electronics. And chillingly, it’s inevitable that a solar storm of this scale will happen again and possibly before the end of the century.

A mass satellite outage could also be caused on purpose by an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. An EMP attack like this has never been perpetrated as part of a conflict, only in tests, because it requires a large and high-altitude nuclear detonation. A nuclear bomb detonated high enough above Earth’s surface spreads an electromagnetic pulse that destroys satellites. But you’d probably need multiple EMP bombs to detonate at the same time to accomplish this, and it’s also not clear what a hostile nation would gain – after all, they’d need to be a country with both nuclear and spaceflight capability, and all the countries which can do both of those things also have plenty of satellites of their own in orbit. With an attack like this, it wouldn’t really be possible to be selective about which satellites get downed. So, though it would be possible, the circumstances that would need to align for it to be a viable option haven’t yet come to pass.

Finally, there’s a phenomenon called Kessler Syndrome. Kessler Syndrome is a scenario where the amount of space debris orbiting Earth becomes so large that a domino effect of collisions begins to happen, creating a deadly cloud of debris that would eventually reduce everything orbiting the planet to dust. The more things we launch into orbit, the more likely Kessler Syndrome becomes.

But it doesn’t necessarily matter how the satellites were destroyed. If the satellites all spontaneously disappeared with no looming disaster or declaration of war, what kind of world would we find ourselves living in? Right away, it would severely affect our communication. Television stations and phones relying on satellite connections would go down, as would satellite internet. This could cause panic, because people would probably believe that something far worse was happening, since they wouldn’t be able to access any information; the hysteria could put people in danger where the satellite outage itself wouldn’t.

Thankfully, not all communication technology on Earth relies on satellites, even in the twenty-first century. Cell phones rely on cell towers, which aren’t part of the satellite network. Satellite internet is also relatively rare; much of our ability to connect to the internet comes from powerful wired connections and cellular signals. As well as that, any traditional landline telephones that plug into the wall will also continue to work – although the number of people who have such phones is dwindling.

If the outage wasn’t caused by a solar flare that affects huge swathes of electronics outside of satellites, we’d also still have electricity, and many television stations that rely on traditional broadcasting, not to mention radio, would continue. However, it is true that we don’t have the bandwidth to support a complete, instantaneous switch back to traditional, analog communication, so it’s easy to imagine telecoms companies reducing their services to ensure important messages between governments and emergency workers get through. This wouldn’t be the end of the world because, again, there’s no imminent threat to life that a satellite outage causes in most sectors, and in the sectors where there are, you definitely need comms bandwidth to be rationed to keep people safe.

So, where does the true danger lie? Immediately, transportation industries would be in big trouble because of GPS. The Global Positioning System is vital for ships and planes in the modern age to know where they are and where they’re going. Without satellites, that instant knowledge would be gone in an instant. This doesn’t mean that every plane in the sky is going to crash, just that pilots would need to resort to analog communications like standard radios as soon as possible, as well as using maps and compasses to find out where they are. The same is also true of ships. Luckily, pilots and sailors should be trained in how to do this, and planes especially will still be able to communicate with air traffic control because they have at least three traditional radio backup systems. The big danger is in planes accidentally crashing into each other. But with enough work and attention, there needn’t be any crashes or tragedies. Within the space of a few hours, all the planes in the sky will have been able to land.

A satellite failure would also be bad news for ordinary drivers who depend on GPS; if you’re far from home and don’t happen to have a paper map and a compass, you might get lost. But hopefully, rescue efforts would be coordinated by disaster response teams. In the aftermath, the amount of global traffic and freight would be drastically reduced; the tourism industry could ground to a halt as only the bare minimum ships and planes are allowed to fly to help keep them safe. This would be inconvenient, but it’s far from an apocalypse.

But there are yet other industries where the disappearance of satellites for any reason would have a serious effect – namely, weather prediction and banking. Weather events can be extremely dangerous, and without satellites to monitor Earth’s climate from above, we’d struggle to accurately predict storms. This is a lot more severe than somebody getting caught in the rain; we rely on satellites to track the progress of hurricanes and cyclones, and without them, we might not be able to put out warnings, start evacuations, and keep an eye on the situation. It would also further affect planes since they might end up flying through dangerous storms. In the longer term, we’d lose lots of vital climate data, which is even more important as we’re trying to monitor global warming and extreme weather events.

Banking is a little more complex; a lot of mobile banking relies on the satellite network to keep track of every financial transaction. This is so that the ATM you withdraw cash from is able to communicate with your central bank and take the amount from your balance, and so your phone – with mobile banking – knows you withdrew money and how much. Without satellites, the financial sector at this scale would probably collapse. There could be a run on the banks and a stock market crash as people lose faith in the economy when cash becomes incredibly valuable over any other type of transaction, and our banking system would be knocked back by decades.

Ultimately though, while there would be massive, immediate disruption, we have all the information, resources, and technology we need to rebuild our satellite infrastructure relatively quickly. And that’s what would happen if every satellite stopped working.