In 2026, low Earth orbit is no longer simply “space”: it is urban planning. The band between 300 and 1,000 kilometres above our heads increasingly resembles an invisible city rather than an empty sky, with lanes, junctions and right-of-way rules. This is where most of the digital economy passes through — communications, navigation, Earth observation — and where the boundary between infrastructure and vulnerability is becoming increasingly blurred. And what becomes infrastructure sooner or later also becomes a military target.

One number is enough to understand the turning point. According to the European Space Agency (Esa), surveillance networks track around 40,000 objects in orbit; of these, approximately 11,000 are operational satellites. But the truly threatening part is what cannot be seen: more than 1.2 million fragments larger than 1 centimetre (large enough to cause catastrophic damage to a spacecraft) and around 50,000 objects larger than 10 centimetres. It is the difference between a road and a minefield: construction can continue, but at a certain point the environment itself begins to react, with collisions generating further collisions.

This scenario is giving rise to a new form of civilian infrastructure: space-traffic control. In the United States, the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), developed by the Noaa’s Office of Space Commerce, provides operators with “space situational awareness” data and security “screening” services. In September 2025, it reported supporting fleets operating more than 8,000 spacecraft, revealing that orbit is no longer a technical exception but an administered domain, with procedures, responsibilities and, inevitably, disputes.

The engine of congestion is the mega-constellations. According to Reuters, SpaceX’s Starlink operates around 9,400 satellites — approximately two-thirds of all active objects in orbit — and in 2026 it planned to lower many units from 550 kilometres to around 480 in order to reduce the risk of collisions and accelerate the re-entry of malfunctioning satellites.

As traffic increases, so does the number of manoeuvres. Nasa, in its bulletins on debris, recalls that the International Space Station has carried out dozens of collision avoidance manoeuvres since 1999, a minimal but telling indicator of the continuous maintenance required by this “city”. In its Space Environment Report 2025, Esa stresses that it is not enough simply to stop producing new debris: stricter end-of-life re-entry rules and active-removal missions are needed.

This is where the geopolitical and military dimension comes in. The U.S. Space Force describes space as a “warfighting domain”, a contested environment. If orbit is now critical infrastructure, then it can be monitored, disrupted or blinded: through jamming, cyberattacks, close-proximity operations, and even the kinetic threat posed by anti-satellite (Asat) missiles. This is the fulfilment of the prophecy of the 1980s: since Ronald Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative, the idea of “space warfare” has no longer been science fiction but doctrine. Today, however, the difference is decisive: wars are not fought “in space”; they are fought over the orbital city that keeps the Earth functioning.

The implications are profound. Space urban planning requires democracies to rethink not only technical rules, but also rights and responsibilities on a global scale. For now, governance remains at the mercy of the most powerful and technologically advanced actors; international rules are slow, fragmented and often unresponsive. The paradox is that what was once a promise of global cooperation — space as a common good — risks turning into an urban planning system of conflict. Space is no longer the neutral void of scientific utopias: it is a home, built by humanity, vulnerable to the same logic of power, interest and competition that dominates the Earth.

See, L’orbita abitata e armata: il cielo non è più neutrale