Geomagnetic storm sends 40 Starlink satellites plummeting to Earth

SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites last Thursday just in time for a geomagnetic storm to knock 40 of them out of orbit and send them back to Earth the following day ....praise be SOL .

Geomagnetic storms occur when a surge of solar wind — charged particles from the sun — smashes into Earth's magnetic field and generates charged particles and currents in Earth's upper atmosphere. The surge warms the upper atmosphere and increases its atmospheric density such that the drag experienced by satellites in low Earth orbit can be enough to send them tumbling back to Earth. The geomagnetic storm experienced by the satellites came from solar wind kicked out by a Jan. 30 coronal mass ejection — an eruption of the sun.

After launch, the 49 SpaceX satellites began orbiting as close to 130 miles (210 kilometers) from Earth. This low orbit was intentionally designed to make the satellites easily disposable in the event of a postlaunch failure, but the low orbit also left them vulnerable to the geomagnetic storm.
www.livescience.com...

40 down 2000 to go.

a reply to: gortex
Are they not shielded enough for events like this or just flying through the wrong corridor in space at the wrong time?

I would have though if 40 of those come down, it has to be other satellite too that may experience problems. If there were some around and having no problem, it would give insight on how disposeable these starlinks are engineered.

If so, this was known to happen sooner or later and calculated. So it should not be a loss of great value and reserves should be accounted for in such calculations. 40 at a time is annoying though for sure.

I believe they weren't high enough in their orbit yet and it pushed them back to earth. OOPS!!

a reply to: gortex

I have Skynet service

As a rural user, its been lifechanging. Oh, and I can game!

Whats with the 200 more to go smear?

a reply to: gortex


I don't know the legitimacy of this video....
youtu.be...


Edit: I didn't count 40, but it's a quick video.

a reply to: JinMI

Whats with the 200 more to go smear?

2,000 of a proposed 42,000 , this is what 2,000 Starlink satellites are doing to astronomy now imagine what 42,000 + the thousands of competing systems will do.

Starlink satellites captured as they passed above the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

www.theverge.com...
Not a smear but a hope.

a reply to: gortex

As someone is is completely ignorant to atronomy, how much data from the cosmos do we acquire from the ground.

I will admit 42k satellites does sound like way too much

a reply to: Bigburgh

That's got to be it. I've seen a good dozen of these going around. Same patterns and colors.

a reply to: JinMI

Data from professional telescope arrays and the many thousands of citizen scientist setups are all affected by the Starlink satellites so lots of data is being lost as radio and optical telescopes are affected.

Elon Musk's response was we should be using space telescopes instead , not much help for amateurs with expensive home setups and the large satellite arrays run by professional astronomers.

Big business doing as it pleases once again.

a reply to: gortex

Big business has its detriments, yes thats an understatement.

However big business also drives technology and prosperity.

Internet, for me in boonieville, to you across the world and even the technology we are using to commumicate to eachother. Not to mention the games we play!

originally posted by: mikell
I believe they weren't high enough in their orbit yet and it pushed them back to earth. OOPS!!

I got it that they were in a pre orbit position awaiting to move up to their future orbit and in a zone of high electromagnetic interference compared to other layers of the Atmosphere above the Troposphere. I think these were in the mesosphere and the reason all of the satellites above earth didn't get smoked was due to their orbits being in a safer location when the storm hit.

a reply to: gortex

Oh nice.
I’ll be getting a sudden surge in ufo reports lol

a reply to: gortex

I am sure that's would be the response of a guy who runs a company which makes one of the few viable means to launch such satellities into space. Whats funny is that no one though to protect those sats from solar flares considering they aren't going to just got away. So how many of those sats are vulnerable to this?

a reply to: gortex

I have this



Now I have to call mother

a reply to: gortex

It is so astoundingly easy to use software to remove tracks from your images, especially stacked ones that most people use now-a-days.

Here are a couple articles:
Satellites, Begone! Remove Trails From Your Astrophotography
Removing Satellite Trails During Stacking

Here is some software:
PixInsight
Deep Sky Stacker (It's done this for years when you stack with the "median" option apparently. Here is a forum thread about it from over a decade ago.)

Stop living up to the name of astronomers being old curmudgeons unwilling to change because you don't like what's new and mildly inconveniencing.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

It is so astoundingly easy to use software to remove tracks from your images, especially stacked ones that most people use now-a-days.

Perhaps while there are relatively few tracks on the images but what about when all you have is tracks , Starlink plan to add another 40.000 satellites to their system and others will follow with their own rival systems.

Stop living up to the name of astronomers being old curmudgeons unwilling to change because you don't like what's new and mildly inconveniencing.

We'll see how "mildly inconveniencing" they are in the coming years , at the moment Starlink is responsible for the majority of near misses in orbit but as their number grows the near misses will become collisions , we are littering Earths orbit as we've littered the planet , support that if you must.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: gortex

I have Skynet service

As a rural user, its been lifechanging. Oh, and I can game!

Whats with the 200 more to go smear?

They pollute the sky for astronomers.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

I like my daughter and her children to grow up and look at the beautiful night sky without having to ignore 42k satellites ruining the view.

From when I was born, the horizon did not have wind farms stacked, now my daughter grows up, she does not even know how it looks yet, a horizon without these wind parks.

It has nothing to do being against progress, just that we don't think long term, evidently. We still have no solution what to do with nuclear waste except moving it around. It was said back then we will find one in the meantime.

Why do I keep thinking of Wall*E??
a reply to: gortex

a reply to: gortex

The software works with multiple tracks. Also, the tracks are only there when the satellites are in sun. They can be planned around and when they can't they can be edited out.

You never seem to speak out against anything but SpaceX. You realize there are others as well, right? What are your thoughts on the constellations from One Web? Kuiper? The two systems that the Chinese are developing? Even if SpaceX's initiative fails, there will be others.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

There are approximately 7k satellites currently orbiting earth. That is not including rocket bodies, fairings, and other debris. That number is nearly 30k. How many satellites do you see on a nightly basis?

Your efforts would be better off fighting light pollution.