Tech

SpaceX loses 40 Starlink satellites to magnetic storm

SpaceX faces an unexpected setback. Indeed, the aerospace company was to send around fifty satellites into low orbit to complete the fleet of Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet. Only, a magnetic storm came to play the spoilsports. Result, 40 satellites destroyed out of 49.

magnetic storm spacex
Credits: SpaceX

This February 8, 2022, SpaceX has sent 49 satellites into low orbit. They were supposed to come to swell the ranks of the armada of satellites of Starlink, the internet by satellites of the American company led by Elon Musk. However, space is a complex, difficult environment, with many phenomena and variables to take into account.

In a press release published on February 8, 2022, SpaceX announced that it had lost 40 satellites out of the 49 shipped. The fault of a magnetic storm, which deported the satellites from their initial trajectory. First of all, let’s remember what a thunderstorm or magnetic storm is. This phenomenon is related to variation in solar activity and it can end in sudden and intense fluctuations of the terrestrial magnetism.

To put it simply, when our star casts a significant amount of solar particles towards the Earth (via what are called solar winds), the Blue Planet’s magnetosphere is disturbed. As SpaceX explains, these storms “cause a warming of the atmosphere and an increase in atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes”.

magnetic storm spacex
Representation of a magnetic storm / Credits: Wikipedia

Read also: SpaceX – a Falcon 9 rocket will crash on the Moon

The magnetic storm got the better of SpaceX

It is precisely this phenomenon that SpaceX equipment encountered on February 3, 2022, the date of the launch from Florida of the 49 Starlink satellites. Whereas the devices were dropped at an altitude of 210 km and that they then had to take position in final orbit a few hundred kilometers higher, the storm completely upset SpaceX’s plans.

Indeed, the variations in the atmosphere have “caused the increase in atmospheric drag up to 50% greater than previous launches”. Despite putting the satellites into safe mode, a method that allows devices to fly sideways like a sheet of paper to minimize the impact of drag, the effects of the magnetic storm were too great.

The activation of the safety mode did not allow to start raising orbits for the majority of the satellites. Of the 49 devices sent, 40 drifted off course and disintegrated upon entering the atmosphere. SpaceX reminds that no debris will reach the ground. As a reminder, China recently accused Elon Musk of being irresponsible with Starlink satellites, after two collisions between the Chinese space station and SpaceX devices.

Source: SpaceX

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