> The idea that putting satellites in LEO is some sort of brand new never-before-done thing that deserves wide latitude for greenfield engineering is crazy. Hell, I've owned a GPS receiver for about 20 years!

GPS (along with the other major navigation satellite constellations) are in Medium Earth Orbit.

LEO is about to become a lot more crowded, thanks to cheaper launch costs and miniaturisation. What was previously done with MEO and GEO satellites can now be done with LEO constellations, with the advantages of being closer to earth.

Some proposed constellations in LEO number in the thousands of satellites, which is unprecedented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_constellation#Commun...