On Tuesday, Feb. 8, SpaceX and Starlink officially confirmed what many people began to speculate on social networks, namely that the latest batch of starling satellites launched on Thursday, Feb. 3, may have had problems in orbit and did not fully reach their intended orbit.
Some have speculated that this may be a problem with the rocket itself, but we know from the announcements released by SpaceX and Starlink that it is actually related to space weather or the influence from the sun, affecting satellites in orbit, and this is not the first time we have seen satellites affected, but it may be the most sudden impact we have ever seen, in fact, it destroyed not just one Starling satellite, but 40 of its latest batch of 49 starling satellites.
In this article, we'll explore exactly what kind of space weather it was and why this event had such a significant impact on starlink. First, if you're not quite sure what starlink is, starlink will become an internet service that will cover the entire world in low-Earth orbit, with the goal of providing internet services to more people living in remote areas who don't have access to the internet.
So what are space weather events? Simply put, space weather events are events that occur on Earth and are caused by the Sun. Space weather includes the sun, the solar wind, near-Earth space, and any conditions and events in our upper atmosphere that may affect satellite and terrestrial technology systems as well as humans, life, and technology. The main concern here is geomagnetic storms, which are generally rated g1 to g5.
The event that affected the starling satellite on Friday, February 4 was the lowest, with only g1 or kp5 levels. However, the first impact on Earth and the first time Earth felt the effects of space weather actually began as early as February 1. It's a long period of space weather, but it's not uncommon. Because we are entering the 25th solar cycle, each solar cycle is about 11 years. The sun is becoming more and more active, and more and more sunspots or dark areas of the sun's surface may produce these solar flares.
In fact, as of you see this article, there will be sunspots every day in 2022, the 25th solar cycle will start more active than predicted, and the peak will occur around 2025 to 2026. So these active solar flares are certainly not unheard of, and are likely to be expected. Solar flares are essentially huge columns of energy emitted by the sun, and on Earth we can see the effects of these solar storms on human space activity, but Earth's magnetic field protects us from any real threat.
Particles from the sun can actually have an impact or even damage on satellites in power grids and low Earth orbit, especially satellites that are vulnerable to solar storms because they are not protected. Looking back at the timing of the event now, in late January we saw the Space Weather Forecast Center's warning against the start of the coronal mass ejection effects, and at 21:45 on February 1, we saw the effects of the CME, when sunspots began to become more active and will continue until at least February 5.
The Space Weather Forecast Center issued a KP5 warning that it expects a geomagnetic storm to reach a potential threat level of KP5 by the evening of February 1 and 2, when in fact the geomagnetic storm reached the KP5 level at 8:46 a.m. on February 3. Early warning indicates a possible slight impact on satellite operations, but this is before launch. In fact, the early warning of KP5 extended to the launch time of the Starlink mission at 18:13 on February 3, but SpaceX did not stop the Starlink launch mission.
The geomagnetic storm began to weaken after reaching KP5 at 16:05 on February 4, but that was about 24 hours after launch. At this time SpaceX claimed that geomagnetic storms had an impact on their operations, and the Space Weather Forecast Center had issued sufficient warnings about the potential impact on the satellites, which were heading towards the peak of solar activity over time, and that a large number of solar storms were expected.
So why did this solar storm have such an impact on the star chain? We'll explore why this is the case and why starlink moons are particularly susceptible to solar activity. Starlink satellites orbit most of Earth's atmosphere, which is made up of many different particles, such as oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Starlink satellites operate about 550 kilometers above the Earth's surface, providing Internet services to the world. For example, viasat operates satellites that operate in geostationary orbit, about 35,700 kilometers from the Earth's surface. But Starlink has an advantage in low-Earth orbit because starling satellites are able to provide higher-speed Internet with lower latency. Ability to connect to a server to better play games or video chat. Since starling satellites are deployed in low-Earth orbit, this is why starlink satellites are susceptible to solar storms.
So what is a solar storm? It is the phenomenon of the sun that has a coronal material ejection, the coronal material ejection interacts with the Earth's magnetic field, solar storms and geomagnetic storms heat the atmosphere, as the atmosphere heats and expands, more molecules begin to push outward from the Earth's surface, and the atmosphere becomes thicker and thicker. These satellites in low-Earth orbit now hit more atmospheric molecules and therefore encountered so-called atmospheric resistance. They move at a slower speed due to impacting more and more molecules, can no longer maintain a normal orbit, and may re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. It's also a summary of what's happening here.
So normally, Sterling satellites operate 550 kilometers above the ground, and they slowly raise their orbits before reaching their operating altitude, and when they are at lower altitudes, they do on-orbit checks. This is just to make sure that their functionality is normal.
Starling satellites operate at lower altitudes, and if one or more of these satellites have problems, they do not pose a threat to satellites operating at traditional altitudes. Because if one satellite fails here, it poses a threat to other satellites operating at that altitude, not just starling, but any other satellite or the International Space Station.
So when the Starling satellite is examined at the bottom of the atmosphere, it is more susceptible to resistance, and as the atmosphere expands, more satellites will be affected by the molecules in those atmospheres, so the problem arises. Starlink satellites are still in the inspection phase, and once affected by solar storms, SpaceX turns these satellites on safe mode to protect them from solar storms. But 40 of these satellites did not recover from safe mode, but were affected by the density of the atmosphere, and more and more molecules in the atmosphere were heated, which would cause these satellites to stall due to drag, and then fail to maintain normal orbits and then crash after being recaptured by Earth's gravity.
Overall, solar storms will continue to be a threat to future satellites, and this is not the first time this has happened to satellite suppliers, and there have been examples of strong solar storms destroying and destroying satellites in the past. In fact, something very similar is that a very intense solar storm increased the density of the atmosphere in part because of the Crash at Skylab that year.
So this is not the first time, and it will be something that will have to be faced, and now we are doing more research, there are a lot of projects trying to better understand the effects of space weather, to better predict space weather, but also to build more resilient satellites in orbit, and of course not only satellites are affected by solar storms, but also the power grid on Earth.
So that's where the 2018 Parker Solar Probe launch came into play. It will continue to discover more and more things.