If there was more industry in space, it would make some sense. The problem now is there isn't enough demand for it, and if you don't maintain the orbit for this stuff, it'll cause problems. The most likely problem is that it'll do a uncontrolled re-entry somewhere on Earth and hit someone. The other possibility is it'll wander in its orbit and smash into something else in orbit.
Also, if it's not big enough to monitor it can disappear. Radar makes it hard to track anything that's not huge and actively transmitting.
> Also, if it's not big enough to monitor it can disappear. Radar makes it hard to track anything that's not huge and actively transmitting.
I don't know about that:
"Since 1990, the Goldstone Orbital Debris Radar has collected orbital debris data for debris as small as about 2 mm in LEO for the NASA ODPO. . . . . The Goldstone Orbital Debris Radar is an extremely sensitive sensor capable of detecting a 3-mm metallic sphere at 1000 km, which makes it an incredibly useful tool in the characterization of the sub-centimeter-sized debris population." - https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/measurements/radar.html
Mechanical parabolic dish is severely limited in the number of objects that can be tracked per unit of time. The object has to pass through the narrow beam.
There's a trade-off between sensitivity and number of objects you can track, and mechanical steering is inferior to phased arrays for rapidly changing targets.
Also, if it's not big enough to monitor it can disappear. Radar makes it hard to track anything that's not huge and actively transmitting.