I believe that everyone has heard the news of the burning of Starlink satellites recently, that is, 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX in early February were affected by the impact of the solar magnetic storm, deorbited and burned. SpaceX’s losses are not small (I don’t know if there is insurance?). After a few days, foreign observatories have also appeared in related videos of the burning of satellites. Like meteors, several have been drawn from the sky, and they look quite spectacular.
Video of 40 Starlink satellites burned by solar magnetic storms (only some satellites)
A camera located at the Astronomical Society of Puerto Rico (SAC) in Spain captured a fragment of some of the Starlink satellites burned at 2:40 a.m. (US time) on February 7. Starting about 40 seconds later, a large circle of bright spots suddenly appeared below, and then slowly , and then like a number of meteors, they fly scattered and continue to move forward to leave the camera. I don’t know how many actually there are, but I guess there are at least 20. This spectacular picture is not good for those who don’t know it. Will think it is a missile launch, or some kind of exercise:
There is another shot captured in the follow-up, and the distance feels closer, and the Starlink satellites seem to fly a long distance from the whole:
Full video:
The 49 satellites were launched by SpaceX on February 3 at the Kennedy Space Center. According to SpaceX, although these satellites were successfully launched, they were affected by the solar magnetic storm and prevented 40 satellites from entering orbit, so they re-entered the earth’s atmosphere. , then burned up and burned up in the atmosphere, only 9 climbed to their intended destination orbits. SpaceX is expected to lose as much as 50 million US dollars (about NT 1.4 billion) in this incident, which is not small. Below is the live video of the launch:
SAC scholar Eddie Irizarry mentions“This is one of the most dramatic and impressive disintegration events that Puerto Rico has observed.” Another Juan Velez said: “I saw it from the very beginning, it was very different from a normal meteor, I I don’t think I can ever forget this incident.”
Langbroek, a Dutch satellite orbit expert, believes that the scene recorded in Puerto Rico is indeed consistent with the recently launched Starlink satellite at an angle of 53.2 degrees. The orbit inclination he calculated is between 54 and 56 degrees. Although there is a little error, it is quite close. . Finally, he added that other Starlink satellites will pass through the atmosphere and burn up in the next few days, but it is uncertain when and where, so those who are interested can take a look at the sky occasionally in the early hours of the morning.
For friends who are worried about whether they will crash to the earth, SpaceX also emphasized that these satellites will burn and destroy in the atmosphere, so they will not collide with other satellites, and no satellite parts will fall to the ground.
SpaceX has reached the milestone of 2,000 satellite launches on January 18, which means it is nearly halfway to its goal of 4,408.In addition, with the increasing number of satellites, SpaceX also launched faster and more stable satellites in early February. STARLINK PREMIUM Premium Plan。
