A solar storm causes the loss of 40 satellites in the Starlink network

Weather of Arabia - A recent solar storm caused the destruction of at least forty satellites of the "SpaceX" company, which it launched within its network of satellite Internet communications, Starlink. This is the largest collective loss of satellites due to a solar storm, after the company's efforts to save the satellites failed.

The space exploration technology company, known commercially as "SpaceX", said that a geomagnetic storm caused by a huge radiation flux from the sun destroyed at least 40 of the 49 satellites that the company launched recently, within its Internet communications network Starlink.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, said the accident is believed to be the largest mass loss of satellites due to a single magnetic storm. In an announcement posted on its website last Tuesday, the company stated that the storm hit the satellites on Friday (February 4, 2022), a day after it was launched into a temporarily "low" orbit at an altitude of about 210 kilometers from Earth.

And SpaceX explained that it normally deploys satellites in such low orbits at the beginning so that they can fall and return quickly and safely to Earth and burn up upon entry if a malfunction is detected during the initial system checks.

However, the company did not clarify whether it had expected the severity of the space weather conditions it was exposed to, caused by a solar storm days earlier, when it launched the latest batch of its 49 satellites. According to SpaceX, the speed and intensity of the solar storm significantly increased the density of the atmosphere at the satellite's low orbit, causing increased friction or drag and destroying at least 40 of them.

The company added that the Starlink network operators tried to direct the satellites to a "safe position" to fly in a manner that would reduce drag, but that those efforts "failed with most of the satellites, causing them to slide to lower levels of the atmosphere where they burned up upon return to Earth."

"This is unprecedented to my knowledge," McDowell added. He stated that he believed this was "the largest single loss of satellites due to a solar storm, and the first mass disruption of satellites as a result of the increased density of the atmosphere."

SpaceX, the Los Angeles-based space rocket company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has launched hundreds of small satellites into orbit since 2019 under Starlink's high-speed internet network. Musk said on Twitter on January 15 that the network includes 1,469 active satellites, and that 272 are moving into operational orbits.

The company said it eventually envisions deploying about 30,000 satellites, up from 12,000 it had previously planned.