I feel the article does a poor job at explaining the researcher's base assumptions:
* What is the relationship between aluminum oxides and ozone depletion? * How long is the useful life of a satellite (when will this be a problem)? * What's the margin of error in the predictions (how confident are the scientist)?
This feels like sensationalism. On the other hand, the paper itself might be underestimating the number of launches as it relies on another paper expecting "triple the count of tracked objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO) over the next century". This feels low given how much the cost of launching has been decreasing.