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According to the Associated Press, the US space exploration technology company SpaceX suffered heavy losses, and the company issued a statement on the 9th that as many as 40 of the 49 starlink satellites it recently launched were de-orbited due to geomagnetic storms or will be scrapped. Starlink, a project of the American Space Exploration Technology Corporation, plans to build a "Starlink" network of about 12,000 satellites in space to provide Internet services.
A statement released by SpaceX said the third batch of Starlink satellites launched on Feb. 3 encountered a severe geomagnetic storm that caused 50 percent more resistance than previous launches and prevented deployed satellites from reaching their correct orbit around The Earth.
SpaceX said that although the company's ground controllers tried to save the satellites by putting them dormant and flying with minimal drag, the drag in the atmosphere was too great to resist, eventually causing 40 satellites to de-orbit. The satellites have either entered the atmosphere and are burning or are about to burn, the company said. SpaceX stressed that due to the secondary deployment strategy, the risk is fully considered, the risk of these deorbitant satellites colliding with other satellite bodies is zero, they will burn out in the atmosphere, there will be no orbital debris, and no debris will fall to the ground.
Since launching the project in May 2019, SpaceX has launched nearly 2,100 Starlink satellites cumulatively, of which more than 1,800 are still in orbit. Previously, it was reported that Musk had hinted that the manufacturing cost of a single "Starlink" satellite was much less than $500,000.
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(Edited by Gong Xinyu)