A geomagnetic storm triggered by a large burst of radiation from the sun has disabled at least 40 of the 49 satellites newly launched by SpaceX as part of its Starlink internet communications network, the company said.
The incident was believed to mark the largest collective loss of satellites stemming from a single geomagnetic event, and was unique in the way it unfolded, Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said on Wednesday.
The alert warned that solar flare activity from a "full halo coronal mass ejection" - a large blast of solar plasma and electromagnetic radiation from the sun's surface - was detected on Jan. 29, and was likely to reach Earth as early as Feb. 1. Starlink operators tried commanding the satellites into a "safe-mode" orbital configuration allowing them to fly edge-on to minimize drag, but those efforts failed for most of the satellites, forcing them into lower levels of the atmosphere where they burned up on re-entry, SpaceX said.
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