www.zerohedge.com BY TYLER DURDEN
Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink experienced a devastating space-weather impact last Friday when a geomagnetic storm forced “dozens” of newly launched low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites into “safe-mode” where they experienced “deorbiting” and will or already have crashed back to Earth, according to aĀ SpaceX blog post.
“Unfortunately, theĀ 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.Ā
In fact, onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches. The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize dragāto effectively “take cover from the storm”āand continued to work closely with the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron and LeoLabs to provide updates on the satellites based on ground radars.
Preliminary analysis show the increased drag at the low altitudes prevented the satellites from leaving safe-mode to begin orbit raising maneuvers, andĀ up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere,” the blog post said.Ā
