SpaceX Loses 40 Of 49 Starlink Satellites Due To Geomagnetic Storm

SpaceX, the Elon Musk-owned commercial space company, said 40 of the 49 satellites it launched on February 3 "will reenter or already have reentered" Earth's atmosphere due to the storm.

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk's ambitious Starlink project suffered a massive hit this week when its almost 40 satellites were damaged by a geomagnetic storm recently. SpaceX, the Elon Musk-owned commercial space company, said 40 of the 49 satellites it launched on February 3 “will reenter or already have reentered” Earth's atmosphere due to the storm. It added that the storm caused “up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches” and prevented the satellites from reaching their intended orbit. If things go well, Falcon will launch about once a week on average in 2022, delivering ~2/3 of all Earth payload to orbit

“Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday,” SpaceX said in a statement.

The company added that engineers tried to fly the satellites like a “sheet of paper” in a bid to reduce the drag but it seems only nine satellites managed to survive the geomagnetic storm. The nearly 40 satellites that failed to reach their orbit pose “zero collision risk” with other satellites. When they enter Earth's atmosphere, these satellites will die on their own, meaning there will be no orbital debris and no satellite part will hit the ground, SpaceX added in the statement.

SpaceX acknowledged that deploying satellites at low altitudes comes “at a considerable cost to us”.