Magnetic Storm puts Elon Musk’s Starlink network in crisis
Elon Musk's satellite Internet service, Starlink, was hit by a severe weather-space phenomenon last Friday. A geomagnetic storm forced "dozens" of satellites in low earth orbit (LEO, Low Earth Orbit), recently launched, to enter "Safe Mode", that is to change course, shortly before undergoing "Deorbiting", that is to exit from orbit to crash into Earth, according to a SpaceX blog post .
Unfortunately, the satellites launched on Thursday were significantly affected by a geomagnetic storm on Friday. These storms cause the warming of the atmosphere and an increase in atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes ”.
In fact, the onboard GPS suggests that the storm's escalation speed and severity caused an increase in atmospheric drag by up to 50% over previous launches. The Starlink team commanded the satellites in a safe mode where they would be moved sideways to minimize drag, to effectively "take shelter from the storm", and continued to work closely with the 18th Control Department. Force Space Station to provide ground radar-based satellite updates.
Preliminary analysis shows that increased resistance at low altitudes has prevented satellites from leaving Safe Mode to initiate orbit maneuvers and up to 40 satellites will re-enter or have already re-entered Earth's atmosphere ", s i reads in the blog post.
SpaceX said the "deorbitating satellites pose no risk of collision" with other satellites and are designed to burn in the atmosphere on "reentry" to mitigate parts of the satellite from hitting ground objects.
After the launch last week, up to 40 of the 49 LEO satellites are expected to be lost. The image below shows the satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket before being detached in LEO.
A camera in Puerto Rico captured the possible fall of these satellites
The purpose of the satellites was initially to help with Musk's Starlink project, which aims to deliver the internet from space to people in rural communities. It was not mentioned whether the loss would affect future service for customers in certain latitudes. The low orbital height of the satellites strongly exposes them to space weather events, more frequent as we move towards a new maximum of solar activity.
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The article Magnetic storm undermines Elon Musk's Starlink network comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/tempesta-magnetica-mette-in-crisi-la-rete-starlink-di-elon-musk/ on Thu, 10 Feb 2022 10:00:08 +0000.