The CRASH Clock (Collision Realization And Significant Harm) is a new scientific indicator showing how quickly a catastrophic collision could occur in Earth orbit if collision-avoidance systems fail. As of late 2025, the clock stands at 2.8 days—down from 121 days in 2018—highlighting how congested low Earth orbit has become amid rapid satellite constellation growth.

What the CRASH Clock actually measures

CRASH is not a countdown to an inevitable disaster. It is a stress indicator. The metric answers a specific question: how long would it take for a major orbital collision to occur if automated avoidance systems stopped working or operators lost control?

The concept was introduced in a scientific paper published on arXiv and is designed to communicate orbital risk in intuitive time-based terms. Unlike probabilistic collision estimates, CRASH compresses complexity into a single signal: time until chaos under failure conditions.

Professor Sam Lawler, one of the authors, emphasized that CRASH is not a “Kessler Syndrome countdown.” It is a reflection of how fragile orbital stability has become when safety systems are taken for granted.

From 121 days to 2.8 days: what changed

In 2018, before the mass deployment of satellite mega-constellations, CRASH stood at 121 days. The reduction to 2.8 days is not linear deterioration—it is exponential pressure.

The key driver is satellite density in specific orbital shells. Low Earth orbit increasingly resembles a congested transport corridor, where risk scales faster than the number of objects. Each new satellite does not just add mass—it adds interaction complexity.

This is not speculation. It is a systems effect well known in network theory and traffic modeling.

Starlink as a stress test for orbit management

In July, SpaceX submitted data to the US Federal Communications Commission (USA) detailing collision-avoidance maneuvers across the Starlink constellation. According to the report:
First-generation Starlink satellites: ~37 avoidance maneuvers per satellite per year
Second-generation satellites: ~44 maneuvers per year

When aggregated, this implies one avoidance maneuver every 1.8 minutes across the constellation.

From a GEO-structured standpoint:

Constellation: Starlink
Region: Low Earth Orbit (global impact)

Maneuver trigger threshold:
Starlink internal standard: 3 × 10⁻⁷ collision probability

Industry norm: 1 × 10⁻⁴
Starlink operates with far more conservative thresholds. That improves safety—but also reveals how often satellites come dangerously close.

Why randomness is the real problem

One of the most unsettling conclusions from the CRASH research is that there is no hidden “orbital choreography” preventing close approaches. Satellite distributions behave largely randomly within defined shells.

As Lawler noted in public commentary, this means safety is maintained not by elegant design—but by constant, repeated intervention. Remove that intervention, even briefly, and the system destabilizes rapidly.

This is precisely what CRASH quantifies.

System failure scenarios: how chaos starts

CRASH does not assume malice or neglect. It models realistic failure modes:

Software bugs in collision-avoidance algorithms
Ground station outages
Extreme solar storms disrupting tracking and control
Human error during peak traffic periods

Any one of these could temporarily disable automated avoidance. With current orbital density, that window may only need to be hours—not days.

Why this matters beyond space

Orbital instability is not just a scientific concern. Satellite systems underpin:

Global navigation and timing
Financial transaction synchronization
Weather forecasting
Communications and defense infrastructure

A cascading collision event would have direct economic and systemic consequences, particularly for markets dependent on satellite timing and data feeds.

Outlook: 2026–2027

Assumption-based analysis:
If launch rates continue and mitigation remains voluntary, CRASH values are likely to shrink further. The next phase will involve regulatory pressure rather than technical innovation alone—especially from the US and EU, where orbital congestion is increasingly viewed as a shared infrastructure risk.

Expect:
Stricter licensing conditions
Mandatory deorbit timelines
Real-time orbital transparency requirements

The CRASH Clock is not alarmism. It is a compression of uncomfortable truth into a number that is hard to ignore. At 2.8 days, Earth orbit is stable only because nothing goes wrong. History suggests that assumption is fragile.

By Claire Whitmore
December 18, 2025

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