Low earth orbit (LEO), which is a band of space measuring from roughly 100 miles to 1,200 miles above the earth, has become one part packed parking lot and one part junkyard within just 60 years of mankind having access to space. Everything from communications satellites to spy satellites to the International Space Station call low earth orbit home. Simply put, the vast majority of all satellites are stationed there and many of them are critical to our very way of life. This makes the reality that North Korea could destroy accessibility to this vital medium without warning very disturbing.

The amount of debris in LEO is already a major problem. Just a tiny piece of space junk traveling at thousands of miles per hour can cause catastrophic damage to operational satellites and even the International Space Station. With over 500,000 trackable pieces of space junk (generally larger than a marble in size) and millions of smaller ones whizzing around the planet, the problem has become a major one, but it could get much, much worse. Case in point, an anti-satellite weapons test executed by China in 2007 that used a defunct Chinese weather satellite as a target. The satellite was stationed in a polar orbit at 537 miles altitude. A kinetic kill vehicle launched by a modified DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile smashed into the satellite at a combined closure rate of five miles a second. Over 3,500 pieces of trackable space debris were caused by the test—the biggest single release of orbital space debris in history. It is estimated that over 150,000 smaller particles were also released after the kill vehicle shattered the satellite, many of which will remain in orbit for centuries to come.

NASA Debris plot by NASA. A computer-generated image of objects (usually a golfball size or larger) in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Approximately 95% of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, i.e., not functional satellites. The dots represent the current location of each item. The orbital debris dots are scaled according to the image size of the graphic to optimize their visibility and are not scaled to Earth. The image provides a good visualization of where the greatest orbital debris populations exist. This image is generated from a distant oblique vantage point to provide a good view of the object population in the geosynchronous region (around 35,785 km altitude). Note the larger population of objects over the northern hemisphere is due mostly to Russian objects in high-inclination, high-eccentricity orbits.

The test was a major wakeup call on multiple tactical, strategic, and geopolitical levels, and made the growing issue of space junk a much more familiar topic in the public's consciousness. With America's military might ever more reliant on space-based capabilities, anti-satellite weaponry has since become a shadowy and fast-moving weapons development space. Considering major peer state adversaries like Russia and China also rely on space for key military and commerce capabilities, anti-satellite weapons are morphing into much more dynamic and less invasive concepts than the kinetic kill vehicles of the past that pulverize their targets. These new concepts include mini "satlets" capable of manipulating and sabotaging other satellites in orbit— and various countermeasures that work to provide a mission kill on orbiting sensor and communications platforms without smashing them apart up or even touching them at all. These include blinding lasers, electronic jamming, and other forms of temporary operational disruption. Just because potential high-end foes of the US and the US itself are developing softer, kinder, anti-satellite capabilities, with an unspoken mutually assured destruction strategy of sorts making kinetic kill anti-satellite weapons undesirable, it doesn't mean other countries that don't have a large stake in space are following suit. Quite the opposite in fact, they have made note of a potential highly asymmetric weapons capability—one that they most likely already have in their arsenal.

KCNA Kim Jong Un inspects an HS-14 ICBM before launch.