[shagie]

Looking more closely at https://in-the-sky.org/spacecraft.php?id=45203 - that makes sense. Its released right about 350 km in a rather eccentric orbit which is then stabilized at just under 400, then after about a month there, it climbs to its target orbit over the course of a month up at 550km.

A more natural one is https://in-the-sky.org/spacecraft.php?id=45229 which has the same initial orbit pattern.

The key thing with this is that without anything else, the satellite has a lifespan that is measured in months to years and up to a decade... not centuries. A Kessler syndrome at 550km would certainly be rather up there on the "suck" scale, but wouldn't keep humanity grounded for more than a decade.

One of the important things to remember about debris at a given altitude, without additional energy, an object cannot climb further out of the the gravity well into a higher orbit. It will always come back to the same spot in its orbit one orbital period later.