Forty SpaceX satellites were destroyed. Which country did they belong to?

SpaceX is an American airline invested and established by Elon Musk.

On February 8, 2022, SpaceX claimed that "the Falcon rocket launched 49 "Starlink" satellites on February 3, and encountered a geomagnetic storm caused by solar activity the next day, causing one of 40 satellites could not be deployed in correct orbits and were declared "scrapped." This news caused heated discussion.

There are three factors that lead to the destruction of satellites:

1. Solar storm.

The main reason why the solar storm caused the destruction of satellites is that this time the solar storm broke out in a hurry and affected a wider range, so when SpaceX launched, the satellite would be in the middle of the solar storm. Destroyed under the influence.

If the launch time and damage range of the solar storm can be avoided, the satellite will not be destroyed and huge economic losses will not be caused. As a normal activity of the sun, solar storms will erupt every once in a while, and each eruption will bring varying degrees of impact and damage.

2. The resistance of low-altitude flight increases.

Since the satellites launched by SpaceX are all satellites operating in low orbits, and satellites operating in low orbits cannot operate normally under the influence of solar storms, so satellites in low orbits are affected by The direct impact resulted in serious damage. If the orbital altitude could be raised at that time, damage would not have occurred, let alone the problem of concentrated damage to 40 satellites.

3. The orbital height cannot be increased.

According to SpaceX’s report, because the operating altitude of low orbit was relatively low at that time, and the satellite did not leave the safe mode, there was no way to raise the altitude of the operating orbit, resulting in direct impact from solar storms. Under the powerful sun, Under the influence of the storm, the resistance of the satellites directly became 0, so the solar storm directly destroyed all forty satellites.

According to the plan, SpaceX needs to launch 42,000 satellites to complete the entire Starlink project. However, about 2,100 satellites have been launched so far, and nearly 40,000 satellites need to be launched to meet functional needs. However, there are many hidden dangers in low-orbit satellites, which also affect the safety of many aerospace environments. This has triggered many countries, including the United States aerospace industry. Worry.

This time, affected by the solar storm, 40 satellites were directly and indirectly scrapped. If a higher-intensity solar storm occurs again, it will cause more satellites to be scrapped or unusable, which will also cause greater losses in the future. This is something that must be paid attention to and avoided.