A chain reaction in which an orbital collision generates debris that causes new collisions, rendering certain orbits unusable.
The Kessler syndrome, theorised in 1978 by Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais, designates a scenario in which a collision in orbit generates a cloud of debris, which causes other collisions, in a self-sustaining chain reaction. Its fearsome feature is non-linearity, the number of collisions growing exponentially beyond a certain orbital-density threshold. For insurance, it represents the catastrophe scenario par excellence, for it produces not independent losses but a single correlated claim striking thousands of satellites simultaneously, which destroys diversification. Such a cascade could render around 20 % of low-orbit satellites inoperative within months and inflict, according to the OECD, nearly 191 billion dollars of immediate losses, exceeding the market's capacity.
A single major collision in low orbit could initiate a Kessler syndrome, invalidating thousands of space policies at a stroke and exceeding any reinsurance capacity.
cascade de Kessler, Kessler effect