SpaceX issued an official statement on February 8 that the 49 Starlink satellites launched on February 3 were damaged the next day due to the severe impact of space weather, and the direct damage caused by the incident was expected to exceed $50 million, which can be said to be a heavy loss.
SpaceX's statement on its official website
Xiaobian will take you today to understand the "Starlink Program" of the United States and the importance of space weather in space missions!
1
introduction:
We may be a little unfamiliar with the "Starlink Project", but when it comes to the initiator of this project, Elon Musk, it is not too strange, who is Elon Musk?
Time Magazine Person of the Year - Elon Musk
He sits on the electric car company Tesla Tesla Tesla, the commercial rocket launch company SpaceX, the brain-computer interface company Neuralink, the underground tunnel The Broing Company, the solar power company SolarCity, etc., and has also proposed many "seemingly impossible" ideas including colonizing Mars, reusing rockets, etc. But these ideas are becoming a reality step by step.
Elon Musk owned company
Musk was also elected to the U.S. Academy of Engineering this year on Feb. 10 with breakthroughs in the design, engineering, manufacturing, and operation of reusable launch vehicles, sustainable transportation, and energy systems.
2
What is the starlink project that has suffered heavy losses this time?
Let's cut to the point and talk about the "Starlink Project" that suffered heavy losses.
The Starlink Program is an important project for SpaceX. In January 2015, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would launch 12,000 satellites into Earth's low Earth orbit between 2019 and 2024, creating a giant star chain of artificial satellites that would provide high-bandwidth, low-latency, low-cost satellite broadband Internet services around the world, as well as financial and technical support for subsequent Mars colonization and the establishment of a lunar base!
"Starlink Project" promotional image
According to NASA statistics, the total number of active satellites above our heads is about 4300, and human beings have launched a total of 11670 satellites in history, as of now, the "Starlink Project" has launched more than 1900 satellites into space, that is, half of the satellites in the sky are now Musk's! It is also prepared to add another 30,000 satellites, bringing the total number of satellites to about 42,000.
Artistic rendering of the Satellite Network of the Starlink Project
Some readers may have to ask, we are now popularizing "5G", why do we have to send satellites to the universe to provide Internet services?
This is because the bottleneck in the development of mobile communications to the current bottleneck is global coverage, we know that to the ocean, desert, mountainous areas, aviation are the short board of land base stations, this is because the range of radio waves is limited, coupled with the obstruction of high-rise buildings in urban areas, for 4G networks, a base station can also cover the radius of 300-500 meters in urban areas, and if it is a 5G network, due to the further improvement of the frequency band range, the coverage radius will be further reduced. If our future network can be a combination of land base stations + satellites, that will solve these problems. In the scene where the land base station cannot be used, satellites are used to achieve the effect of Internet communication. The "Starlink Project" is to cover satellites in various orbits of the earth and build a satellite network.
Satellite communication network
According to the characteristics mentioned above, the potential customer group of "Starlink Project" is:
1. 4.3 billion air passengers and employees worldwide
2. Approximately 30-40 million Hainan Airlines passengers and employees worldwide
3. Approximately 30 million satellite users in the United States
4. Relatively wealthy 5-10% of the 4 billion people living in poor network communication and remote areas
5. About 300 million people around the world who carry out outdoor development, tourism, and scientific expeditions every year...
3
Affected by geomagnetic storms, the newly launched "Starlink" suffered heavy losses
However, in the latest February 3 "Starlink Project" launch mission, 40 of the 49 satellites were seriously affected by geomagnetic Storms, the density of the atmosphere in low-Earth orbit increased, and the air resistance of the satellites increased by 50%, which eventually led to the rapid fall into the atmosphere before the satellites could ascend to orbit, which can be said to be a heavy loss. It is also the largest damage caused to a single geomagnetic storm to a satellite.
The Starlink satellites are launched between two magnetic storms
Some astronomers have also captured the suspected "Starlink" satellites falling into the atmosphere. At around 2:40 a.m. local time on February 7, the Caribbean Astronomical Society's (SAC) meteor surveillance cameras recorded space debris re-entering the atmosphere, several of which may be related to the "Starlink Project" satellite affected by the magnetic storm. Because space debris re-enters the atmosphere much more slowly than meteors, it will look even more spectacular.
Screenshot of a video of a suspected Starlink project satellite crashing into the atmosphere, see Reference 7 for details
4
Launch satellites remember to watch space "weather forecast"
How can this serious damage to satellites due to changes in space weather be avoided? Simply put, it is necessary to pay more attention to the changes in space weather and pay attention to space weather forecasts.
Solar activity outbreak is the source of these catastrophic space weather, especially the flare will produce a large number of high-energy particles, strong electromagnetic radiation, can seriously affect geomagnetic activity and ionosphere, interfere with the production and life of modern society, such as aerospace, spacewalk, satellite security, navigation and communication, power grid facilities, etc., there may also be potential impacts on climate and weather, some satellites to shut down in advance or enter protection mode, aurora is also because of solar activity and the interaction of the earth's magnetic field.
Three rounds of solar activity on the Earth's space environment
Solar activity can cause drastic changes in the space environment, and when affected by solar activity, various environmental changes in the Earth's space are very drastic (as shown in the 3rd round of attack above caused 8 types of space weather events).
The first round of attacks was electromagnetic interference dominated by radio storms, and when solar flares reached Earth, enhanced electromagnetic radiation would cause the density of electrons in the ionosphere above the Earth to increase significantly, affecting radio communications near Earth.
Solar flares
The second round of attacks is to eject a beam of high-energy particles during solar eruption activity, which will greatly increase the probability of a single particle flipping in orbit, making the satellite run incorrectly.
Coronal mass ejection observed by the SOHO satellite
The third attack is a larger-scale solar eruption, also known as coronal mass ejection (CME). The plasma produced by solar activity carries a magnetic field, and as the high-speed solar wind moves to the vicinity of the Earth, it interacts with the Earth's magnetic field, disturbing the Earth's magnetic field and forming a geomagnetic storm.
Geomagnetic storms
A large part of the heavy loss of the "Starlink" satellites is due to the interference of low-orbit satellites by changes in the density of the upper atmosphere. During the occurrence of geomagnetic storms, under the influence of high-latitude Joule heating and aurora particle sedimentation heating, the polar atmosphere is first heated, expanded and raised, and the denser atmosphere in the lower layer is brought to a higher height, which increases the density of the upper atmosphere of the polar region; at the same time, under the joint action of atmospheric circulation, it is brought to other altitude and latitude regions, resulting in an increase in global atmospheric density.
Satellites are de-orbited by drag forces
Once the density of the middle and upper atmosphere increases, these satellites operating in low orbit will feel greater drag, so he will not be able to maintain the original established orbit, gradually deviate from the orbit, and become space junk.
Space Weather and Human Technology Systems
Severe space weather events can lead to the destruction of satellite systems, communication systems, navigation systems and power systems, causing various socio-economic losses. The level of solar activity is gradually entering the high year, we should pay more attention to space weather and reduce aviation mission losses!
Image source related network
Resources:
1. Bilibili Solar Storm: A Wave Sends Away 40 Brand New Starlinks Author: Peijin Astro
2. Official account What is the StarLink Program Author: Communication talent recruitment website
3. Knowing about Musk SpaceX's Starlink starlink program, you want to know all here Author: Yiwen Sili
4. Baijia No. Old Porridge Science Popularization The newly launched Starlink satellites scrapped 40 at a time, all blame the geomagnetic storm? There's another reason
5.https://www.space.com/solar-geomagnetic-storms-spacex-starlink-threat
6.https://www.androidauthority.com/what-is-starlink-1134426/
7.https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gF411n7R1 The perfect opportunity for the Black Space Fork is here: up to 40 satellites will crash in the Starlink G4-7 mission launched on February 3
8. Public number space environment forecast Geomagnetic storm destroyed 40 satellites of Musk? Author: Li Zhitao
Editor: Chen Tianxin
Proofreader: Wan Peng