Starlink has just announced the loss of 40 satellites, when they had just been launched. A unique phenomenon is at the root of this incident.
Illustration of an exploding satellite
A few days after the launch of a new premium offer, here is bad news for Elon Musk’s constellation of satellites. An incident resulted in the loss of a whole series of recently launched Starlink satellites.
What happened ?
At the end of January 2022, SpaceX launched a total of 49 new Starlink satellites in orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The mission seemed successful, it must be said that it is a routine mission for them who have planned more than 50 launches this year . SpaceX has already placed more than 2,000 such satellites around the Earth. However, things turned out a little differently this time around. As the company announced, a geomagnetic storm has erupted.
When a solar flare occurs, it ejects billions of tons of particles through space. This is the basis of the magnetic storm, also called magnetic storm or geomagnetic storm. It is a phenomenon linked to variations in solar activity which leads to sudden and intense fluctuations in terrestrial magnetism.
Illustration of a solar storm // Source: NASA
These particles are dangerous for satellites because they penetrate far and can damage electronics. Usually, systems in orbit are shut down in safe mode as a precaution.
This time, a signal was sent to the Starlink satellites to put them on standby and turn to a favorable position in order to offer as few targets as possible. However, this was not enough of a measure — especially with the satellites that had just been deployed. They were put into safe mode, meaning they flew sideways (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag — to effectively get out of the storm.” But that wasn’t enough. The satellites were unable to exit this safety mode to properly rejoin their orbit. 40 of them (out of the 49) were so badly damaged that they can’t even be used anymore.
According to SpaceX, they must be completely destroyed. Their engines have been programmed to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere as quickly as possible, which should cause them to simply disappear. This is exactly what happened with a Starlink satellite in January 2022. Observers thought they saw a meteorite… it was a Starlink satellite that attempted to cross the atmosphere above Morocco, Spain and near France.
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