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The Sun is in its solar maximum, a period marked by intense solar flares and bursts of charged particles headed toward Earth. These flares have a significant impact on our low-Earth orbit satellites, causing them to shift positions alarmingly.
A series of solar flares has caused two geomagnetic storms on Earth this year, affecting the orbits of thousands of moons, causing an unprecedented mass migration, according to William Parker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaking at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting at SpaceNews. . reports.
Geomagnetic storms are disturbances in Earth’s magnetosphere, the large bubble of magnetic field around our planet, caused by the solar wind.This past May, A A G5 or extreme geomagnetic storm has hit Earth As a result of large ejections of plasma from the Sun’s corona (also known as coronal mass ejections). The G5 storm, the first to hit Earth in more than 20 years, has caused some harmful effects on Earth’s power grids and some spectacular auroras visible over most of the globe.
The storm increased the density of the atmosphere in low Earth orbit by an order of magnitude, which in turn caused atmospheric drag that affected the satellites, Parker said. The resulting migration of satellites was most noticeable on SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which includes more than 6,700 Earth satellites. in low orbit.
“SpaceX saw a 20 kilometer (12.4 mile) position error in their one-day calculations,” Parker was quoted as saying in SpaceNews. collision avoidance.” The researcher is referring to the risk of collisions between satellites in low Earth orbit, which are usually avoided by orbiting satellites. By precisely tracking the spacecraft’s positions, the slight shift in the satellite’s orbits puts it at greater risk of collision.
After the storm peaked, some satellites performed automated maneuvers to return to their pre-storm altitudes, correcting the shifts caused by the event.The day after the storm, about 5,000 satellites, mostly Starlink, performed orbit-raising maneuvers, according to Parker.
“That’s half of all the active satellites deciding to maneuver at once,” he said. “This makes it the largest mass migration in history.”
Scientists are still trying to understand the Sun’s behavior to better predict the occurrence of these geomagnetic storms, which will help satellite operators prepare their equipment in space.
