Elon Musk’s Starlink, the satellite arm of SpaceX, has been hit hard by the strongest solar storm in two decades, SpaceX said.
Starlink accounts for 60% of the approximately 7,500 satellites orbiting Earth and dominates the satellite Internet. Musk said in the X-Files that the Starlink satellites are under stress due to geomagnetic storms, but have so far remained stable.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the solar storm was the largest since October 2003 and could last through the weekend, threatening navigation systems, power grids and other services such as satellite navigation.
Thousands of Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit use inter-satellite laser links to transmit data to each other in space at the speed of light, allowing the network to provide worldwide Internet coverage.
