Morning to Morning 24 hour timelapse (Feb 06 through Feb 07) of @NASASpaceflight's Starbase Live camera at https://t.co/kEKYiXLzdh (click to watch live)#BocaChicaToMars #SpaceX #Starship pic.twitter.com/FWDw1k1rSH
— StarbasePulse (@StarbasePulse) February 7, 2022
On February 3, SpaceX launched 49 satellites into orbit but a geomagnetic storm destroyed nearly 40 of them. SpaceX said the storm caused “up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches,” which prevented the deployed satellites from reaching their proper orbit around the Earth.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to provide low-latency broadband Internet connectivity to remote areas around the globe through a constellation of small satellites in low-Earth orbit suffered an expensive blow recently, but there’s little Musk or SpaceX could do about it. On February 3, SpaceX launched 49 satellites into orbit but a geomagnetic storm destroyed nearly 40 of them. SpaceX said the storm caused “up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches,” which prevented the deployed satellites from reaching their proper orbit around the Earth.
SpaceX said Starlink tried to fly these satellites “edge-on (like a sheet of paper)” to ensure there is as little drag as possible but it’s now increasingly looking like “up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere” instead of reaching their destinations.
The Musk-owned aerospace firm, however, stated that there appeared “zero collision risk” of these satellites with others. It also said its satellites would “demise upon atmospheric reentry,” meaning no debris will be created and no satellite parts would hit Earth.
