Up to 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX last Thursday were damaged by a geomagnetic storm and are re-entering or will soon re-enter the atmosphere without any risk of collisions or debris: Elon Musk’s company reported in a statement. The 49 satellites were launched last February 3 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, thanks to a Falcon-9 rocket that had released them at an altitude of 210 kilometers, an orbit lower than the final one precisely to guarantee the possibility of return in case of problems after the launch.
“Unfortunately – explains SpaceX – the satellites deployed on Thursday were severely hit by a geomagnetic storm on Friday”. This phenomenon, caused by the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetic field, caused the atmosphere to warm and its density to increase at the altitude where the newly launched satellites were. To minimize friction, the Starlinks have been put into safe mode to fly them cutting edge (“like a sheet of paper”) and shelter them from the storm. Up to 40 of them, however, were no longer able to resume the maneuvers necessary to move towards the final orbit. For them the only possibility is to return to Earth: some would have already done so, others instead would be in the process of doing so. SpaceX guarantees that there is no risk of collision with other satellites; in addition, the Starlinks are designed to disintegrate upon reentry into the atmosphere, “which means that no debris is created in orbit and no piece of the satellites falls to the ground.” (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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