SpaceX has confirmed that 40 of the last 49 Starlink satellites it launched have fallen out of orbit or are about to do so, blaming a geomagnetic storm.
The satellites were launched on February 3, as part of the Starlink satellite Internet program. These devices are much smaller than a conventional satellite, and are designed to spend little time in orbit. The idea of Starlink is to offer Internet access anywhere in the world, without the need for cables, just with an antenna that connects to the satellites; To do this, SpaceX plans to launch thousands of satellites over the next few years, a huge network that will cover the entire globe.
Now, that network has a few dozen fewer satellites. Despite the fact that the last launch carried out with the Falcon 9 rocket was successful, as SpaceX has accustomed us to, the problem arose when the satellites were released into the correct orbit, at an altitude of about 210 kilometers.
According to SpaceX, at that time a geomagnetic storm caused the thin atmosphere in that area to heat up and increase its density. These devices are designed to withstand very specific conditions, and this variation caused most of them to suffer too much air resistance; 40 units lost control, or are about to lose it.
The good news is that satellites do not pose a danger to anyone, nor will they remain circling the Earth as ‘space junk’. SpaceX claims that they will simply be destroyed upon reentry into the atmosphere, in response to one of the biggest criticisms Starlink has received: that such a large number of satellites could cause problems for future launches, turning Earth orbit into a gigantic ‘dump’.
This is expected to be a major blow to SpaceX’s aspirations, but at the same time, it can bounce back very quickly. Elon Musk announced that 2022 would be a big year for the project, planning at least one release every week.
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