SpaceX Loses 40 Starlink Satellites a Day After its Launch

This week started a little rough for Elon Musk’s aerospace technology company SpaceX. After SpaceX successfully launched its 49 Starlink internet satellites a day later only a few of them were functional as the geomagnetic storm destroyed about 40 of them.

The launch of the Starlink satellites was successful but the geomagnetic storm was unexpected. The satellite internet service is not a new technology, but they have some flaws like limited speeds, high latency and in many areas it has high costs. Their aim was to provide better internet services as compared to cable and fiber. Though they have not succeeded in doing so but have provided a good service. It ha not created a great fan club. But it is without a doubt having a great use and practicality, as they will provide broadband service at all the corners of the world.

The astronomers are not a great fan of the internet satellites either. Their work is effected by the brightness of these satellites.

According to SpaceX the geomagnetic storm had intensified the atmospheric drag on the satellites which could result in the leaving of their orbits by the satellites. To avoid any disaster the Starlink team had to put their satellites in “safe mode”.

The editor-in-chief of Space.com Tariq Malik told in an email that he does not remember a similar incident of brand new satellites being brought down by a geomagnetic storm.

SpaceX updating about the satellites after the storm had said that due to the low altitudes the drag increased which has prevented the satellites from leaving their safe-orbits and almost those 40 satellites will re-enter or already entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Tariq Malik said that these satellites are purposely kept in low orbit so that if they malfunction they can easily be commanded to deorbited. The lowest point of an orbit is 130 miles (210 km). After the satellites are successfully launched and all functions are in good state then these are commanded to fire their thrusters to raise their orbits to about 341 mile (550km). For conventional communications satellites that carry television and radio signals the orbit altitudes are above 35,000 km.

It is not sure whether SpaceX knows the reasons behind the storm or it was a surprise event for them. For the next time they will be checking the weather environment very closely before they launch.

SpaceX has a plan to launch as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit and on 18th Jan they had launched 2,000 Starlink satellites.

Well now lets see whether SpaceX will be able to fulfil their target or not.

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