SpaceX loses 40 Starlink satellites launched on February 3 to geomagnetic storm

Elon Musk's SpaceX in its latest statement has revealed that it is about to lose up to 40 of its Starlink satellites owing to a geomagnetic storm that occurred last week. The company said that these satellites are from the fleet of 49 satellites that were launched on February 3 from the Florida-based Kennedy Space Center in a Falcon 9 rocket. This comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center had warned of a possible solar storm around the launch time. Geomagnetic storms, as the name suggests, are solar winds that become powerful after interaction with the Earth's magnetic field and jets of charged particles from the sun.

Satellites fail to perform life-saving manoeuvres

"Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday. These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase", SpaceX said in a statement as per The Guardian. Reportedly, these satellites were supposed to perform some manoeuvres in order to dodge the storm's influence and reach their orbit. Since the satellites failed to do so, they suffered a greater atmospheric drag owing to the speed and severity of the solar storm.

The company said that 40 of the satellites will re-enter or have already re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere although it assured that these satellites pose zero risk to other active satellites in orbit. Moreover, it said that the satellites would not create any orbital debris and no parts would hit the ground as they have been designed to disintegrate during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. It is worth mentioning that SpaceX has installed 2,000 Starlink satellites into orbit and has permission to install a total of 12,000. Owing to this vast network, the company has been under fire in several instances with the latest being a spat with China. Recently, even astronomers complained about the satellite constellations, built by SpaceX and other companies, troubling scientists during astronomy. 

Image: Twitter/@SpaceX