Fiery demise of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites captured on video after space storm knocks them out of orbit

FOOTAGE of SpaceX satellites burning up in Earth’s atmosphere after a geomagnetic storm knocked them out of orbit has emerged online.

The dramatic video shows space debris streaking across the night sky like comets over Puerto Rico this week.

Sociedad de Astronomia del CaribeSpaceX satellites break apart as they deorbit over Puerto Rico[/caption]

On February 3, 2022, a Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral with 49 new Starlink satellites, designated as group G4-7.

Soon after the launch, a geomagnetic storm struck Earth’s atmosphere, blocking 40 of the satellites from reaching their final orbit.

SpaceX said in a statement this week that the table-sized contraptions will disintegrate as they deorbit over the coming days.

Video of at least one Starlink breaking apart on reentry was captured by cameras operated by Sociedad de Astronomia del Caribe, a Puerto Rican non-profit organisation.

The three-minute clip recorded on February 7 shows two distinct breakup events as bits of junk are torn apart by Earth’s atmosphere.

These could be a pair of satellites or two bits of the same spacecraft, said Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in the Netherlands.

Either way, it’s clear the debris was related to last week’s botched Starlink launch.

“One clue is that the orbital plane of this launch was over Puerto Rico near the time of the event, and the direction of movement (SW-NE) matches it,” Langbroek wrote Wednesday.

“To get even more certainty, I did some astrometry on the footage and fitted a rough circular orbit to the measured positions.

“The rough orbital fit I get – I measured three fragments – yield[s] orbital inclinations in the range of 54-56 degrees: Starlink satellites are in 53.2-degree inclined orbits.

“This is close enough (given the error margin) to conclude that the reentering object fits with the Starlink orbital plane,” he added.

“So there is very little doubt that this was a Starlink satellite reentering.”

In an update on Wednesday, SpaceX, which is run by billionaire Elon Musk, explained how the storm would affect its most recent Starlink deployment.

The WiFi-beaming technology is typically deployed into lower orbits so that they can be quickly deorbited and destroyed in case something goes wrong.

Once initial checks are complete, they’re pushed to higher orbits where they join a mega-constellation that provides internet access to Starlink customers.

A geomagnetic storm that rattled Earth’s magnetosphere on February 4 raised atmospheric drag, preventing the satellites from raising their orbits.

As a result, they will be pulled back towards Earth by its gravitational pull before turning to dust as they re-enter the atmosphere.

“Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday,” SpaceX wrote on its website.

“These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase.”

SpaceX stressed that the soon-to-be-dead space tech posed no collision risk to other satellites and will break up upon reentry.

Estimates suggest that each satellite costs SpaceX $250,000 to build and launch, meaning the storm could cost it as much as $10million.

SpaceX announced Starlink – its project to beam internet coverage to anywhere on the planet using a constellation of satellites – in 2015, and launched its first batch four years later.

The company intends to put 12,000 satellites into Earth’s orbit, possibly rising to 42,000 in future. Currently, it has almost 2,000 in orbit.

Geomagnetic storms are triggered when the Sun spews out charged particles that interact with Earth’s magnetic field.

They can disrupt satellites and in extreme cases mess with GPS systems and even shut down power grids.

ReutersForty satellites launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been effectively destroyed by a geomagnetic storm[/caption]

APIn this photo taken with a long exposure, a string of Elon Musk’s SpaceX StarLink satellites passes over an old stone house near Florence, Kansas[/caption]

In other news, a four-tonne chunk of a SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the Moon, according to online space junk trackers.

Boeing has sunk $450million into a flying taxi startup that hopes to whisk passengers across cities by the end of the decade.

Personalised smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers this year.

And, scientists are embarking on a mission to unravel the mystery behind dozens of grisly child mummies buried in an underground tomb in Sicily.

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