According to the New York Post reported on the 9th, a magnetic storm caused great damage to the constellation of the "Starlink" satellite recently launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX company. As many as 40 of the 49 new Starlink satellites launched last Thursday have been destroyed. The day after the Falcon 9 rocket successfully put these expensive satellites into orbit, the geomagnetic storm occurred.
SpaceX previously admitted that the launch cost was about $30 million, and together with satellite manufacturing costs, the total loss was estimated to be up to $50 million.
Since 2019, SpaceX has sent more than 1,900 satellites into space, and 42,000 satellites will be in orbit after the program is completed.
Crazy SpaceX, crazy Musk!
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is dedicated to observing transient astronomical events, and as SpaceX accelerates its Starlink program, the number of satellites in orbit increases rapidly, and the proportion of pollution from these satellites to ZTF observations has increased significantly. In the past two years, more than 5,300 star-chain satellite trajectories have appeared in ZTF observation photos.
Why did Musk build Starlink satellites? He said it was to provide low-cost, high-speed internet services to the world. In fact?
Just past 2021, Musk's starlink satellite has repeatedly invaded the orbit of China's Tiangong space station, and in order to ensure the safety of the three astronauts working on the space station, the Chinese side has to adjust the orbital altitude and avoid collisions urgently.
Why did a satellite that originally flew around the earth break into the orbit of the Tiangong space station?
It turns out that satellites can change orbits. Orbit change is a general term for changing the original trajectory. Generally refers to the process of spacecraft using jet fuel or other jets in space to make the spacecraft enter another orbit from a fixed or its own orbit, called orbit change.
Although the United States denied China's claim that the Starlink satellites had endangered the safety of the Chinese space station twice, it said that the activities of the Starlink satellites did not meet the threshold of the established emergency collision avoidance standards, so in either case, emergency notice was not required. In fact, in the relevant collision avoidance incident, the US Starlink satellites are in a continuous orbital maneuvering state, and the maneuvering strategy and intention are unknown. Chinese astronauts in orbit face real and urgent security threats. China has had to adopt preventive collision avoidance controls. It can be said that "Sima Zhao's heart is well known to everyone".
According to Musk, the Starlink program will benefit all mankind. However, based on the value of each satellite of $1 million, 42,000 is $420 trillion! The GDP of the United States in 2021 has just exceeded 23 trillion US dollars, and if it is all completed, it will take at least 18 years for all Americans to eat or drink! Is Musk a living Thunderbolt?