Musk: 40 satellites launched last week will be destroyed by a magnetic storm

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, a Rocket and Space Technology company founded by Tesla (TSLA), said 40 of the 49 satellites launched last week would be destroyed by a magnetic storm.

The company sent starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit on Thursday via the Falcon 9 rocket, but they were "severely affected by a geomagnetic storm on Friday."

Starlink is Musk's project to use thousands of orbiting satellites to provide high-speed internet.

SpaceX said in a statement: "These storms cause the atmosphere to warm, and our low-deployment altitudes increase the density of the atmosphere. "In fact, the onboard GPS indicates that the speed and severity of the storm's escalation resulted in a 50 percent increase in atmospheric drag than previous launches."

SpaceX said preliminary analysis showed increased resistance at low altitudes prevented satellites from leaving safe mode to begin their orbital lift maneuvers, with as many as 40 of them re-entering or having re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

The fallen satellites "pose a zero-risk collision with other satellites" and are intended to die out upon re-entry, so there is no orbital debris and no satellite components hitting the ground, the company said.

The Space Weather Forecast Center says geomagnetic storms occur when strong solar winds near Earth trigger varying currents and plasma in Earth's magnetosphere.

SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 Starlink satellites, with an overall goal of launching about 12,000.

Musk plans to turn SpaceX into a company capable of transporting people to the moon and Mars, depending on Starlink's profitability.

Last week, SpaceX launched Starlink Premium, an Internet broadband service that costs five times as much as its standard service. The standard service hardware costs $499 and $99 per month.

In October, media reported that SpaceX was valued at at least $100 billion after current investors sold shares.