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About 40 satellites could enter Earth’s atmosphere due to geomagnetic storm

SpaceX assured that the deorbiting satellites pose zero collision risk with other satellites

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. About 40 of the 49 microsatellites Starlink of SpaceX, launched into Earth orbit on February 3, were severely damaged by the geomagnetic storm, made an uncontrolled descent from orbit and could already enter the Earth’s atmosphere, according to SpaceX website.

"Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday. <...> The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode <...> The increased drag at the low altitudes prevented the satellites from leaving safe-mode to begin orbit raising maneuvers, and up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere," the message says.

The company assured that "the deorbiting satellites pose zero collision risk with other satellites" and noted that Starlink "by design demise upon atmospheric reentry - meaning no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground."

On Thursday, February 3 at 1:13 p.m. EST (21:13 Moscow Time), Falcon 9 launched 49 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the broadcast was conducted on the company's website.

The Starlink network is designed to provide Internet access by deploying a large number of devices weighing 260 kg. According to SpaceX, the launch of a total of 11,000 satellites and their commissioning will cost $10 bln. The company assures that it will be able to provide broadband Internet with a traffic speed of 1 gigabit per second, which corresponds to the 5G standard. The launch, carried out on Thursday, was the 36th in the framework of the Starlink program, in total, since May 2019, SpaceX has put about 2,000 satellites into orbit.