The answer is clearly no
The answer is definitely no. ftly satellites into orbit is tough but it’s even tougher when you’re trying to send them to other planets or moons
When there isn’t a cloud in the sky, I’ll sometimes check the weather forecast because I don’t want to get soaked if I leave home without an umbrella. But when it comes to launching satellites and keeping them safe from space weather, it’s a bit more complicated. SpaceX Engineers learned that the hard way in 2022 when they were prepped to shoot another round of Starlink satellites into orbit. They checked the space weather forecast and had run their own models and made sure everything would be A-Okay, but out of the 49 satellites that launched, 38 fell out of the sky. That’s a little worse than having to walk around in wet clothes, and if scientists and Engineers hope to avoid a similar incident in the future, we’re going to have to learn a lot more about how space weather works in the area surrounding Earth.
Space weather is driven mostly by the Sun’s activity; how often and intensely it’s burping stuff like matter and light into space. And the way that Starlink satellites operate makes them particularly vulnerable to bad space weather. Like many modern satellites, the Starlink constellation resides in low Earth orbit. This region ranges from 160 to 1,200 kilometers above Earth’s surface, depending on who you ask. SpaceX targets the lowest part of low Earth orbit, launching each Starlink satellite into an initial orbit of 210 kilometers. They do this so that if a satellite malfunctions, it’ll quickly fall and burn up in the atmosphere, preventing dead satellites from floating around like zombies–which is incredibly important. A broken satellite careening around up there could hit other satellites or spacecraft carrying astronauts.
Once a Starlink satellite is functioning correctly, it can use its little booster rockets to push itself into a more permanent orbit at 500 kilometers. But it’s the same phenomenon that helps prevent Starlink zombies that caused those 38 to tumble out of the sky: the drag that comes from flying through the few but still present molecules of Earth’s atmosphere. In fact, the drag was 50 percent higher than normal–at least compared to previous launches–and much higher than SpaceX Engineers were expecting from the forecast. You can think of this extra drag like trying to pedal your bicycle into the wind; that extra push in the opposite direction makes it harder for you to go in the direction you want. So, most of the Starlink satellites weren’t able to boost themselves into their higher, more stable orbit. Instead, they fell back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.
A few days later, SpaceX Engineers figured out that the extra drag was caused by a storm in space that they’d underestimated before the Starlink launched. The Sun had ejected a large amount of plasma in an event called a coronal mass ejection. This plasma traveled through space and reached Earth on launch day. The plasma’s magnetic field interacted with the Earth’s magnetic field and transferred some extra energy into the atmosphere, this energy inflated the atmosphere, sending more molecules to higher altitudes, making the air around any given satellite more dense and more difficult to move through.
By the time Engineers figured out how bad the storm’s effects were, it was too late; most of the satellites were put. So why was the weather forecast–or the models that the Starlink team ran based on that forecast–so wrong? A group of scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center monitors the weather in space and issues warnings if that weather will impact a launch. They’re based at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for short, which is the same group that gives us Earth-based weather reports. While they knew this space storm was coming, they didn’t think it would cause damage. In fact, they classified it as minor, but they didn’t report any effects the storm would have on atmospheric drag. So, the Starlink team had to run the numbers themselves and they miscalculated.
That was the drama happening in very low Earth orbit, but what about everywhere else? Putting satellites into orbit is tough, but it’s even tougher when you’re trying to send them to other planets or moons. Beyond low earth orbit, the other common spots to plop a satellite include geosynchronous orbit at 35,000 kilometers and medium earth orbit, a zone between low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit. For satellites up there, it was is the minor storm that Noah accurately predicted. At these higher altitudes, sudden increases in drag aren’t much of a threat; there just isn’t a large enough change in the number of air molecules to make much of a difference. But space weather can still cause two main types of damage up there. First, it can increase the abundance of high energy electrons. Those electrons can then cause an electric charge to build up on a satellite surface or inside its circuitry. Worst case scenario, that charge creates an electrical short that damages the circuits or the solar panels responsible for powering the satellite. And second, a satellite can be struck by a single charged particle that damages its circuitry.
But it isn’t clear how often high altitude satellites experience space weather related damage. It’s not in company’s best interest to report their satellites failures and they might not even know if a failure was caused by space weather, so science doesn’t have much data to go on. But one thing we do know is that all satellite operators are in for a rocky few years. Right now, we’re in a new-ish solar cycle called Solar Cycle 25. Solar Cycles measure the sun’s activity which moves from calm to stormy and back again; a new one starts every 11 years. Solar Cycle 25 started in 2019 and it’s building toward maximum activity in 2025. It’s already been a more active solar cycle than predicted, so even more plasma eruptions like the one that caused the Starlink satellites to fall out of orbit are probably on the way.
It’s important to better understand how space weather impacts satellites in all orbits, but it’s extra important for satellites in low and very low earth orbits. Those satellites can be cheaper to launch and can offer more detailed images and higher connection speeds, so companies and governments are planning to launch many more low earth orbit constellations in the coming years, some with thousands of individual satellites.
But things are looking up. Shortly after the incident, SpaceX modified their launch program. They sent the next batch of Starlinks to a slightly higher initial altitude of 300 kilometers to give the satellites more time and less drag to boost themselves into their final orbit, and so far this approach has worked. Researchers are also working on improving their space weather forecasts. Starlink is sharing information with NOAA so they have more data to refine their prediction models, and NASA is planning to launch a constellation of satellites dedicated to studying how different types of space weather change the environment where low earth orbit satellites operate.
Hopefully, all these efforts will help everything Engineers launch into space get where they’re supposed to go and stay where they’re supposed to stay. Because the last thing I want to hear in my weather forecast before I step out the door is a chance of satellite rain.