Elon Musk, the eccentric South African billionaire, has seen some of his firm SpaceX’s Starlink satellites fall out of the sky and reenter the Earth’s atmosphere earlier this week. It’s a huge blow for Mr Musk, who had launched 21 of the devices up into space in the hope to upgrade connectivity to its broadband service. The technical failure could prove hugely costly for the company and his owner.
The setback was laid bare by astrophysicist Johnathan McDowell, who claimed the incident of one satellite reentering Earth’s atmosphere came within the past seven days.
Mr McDowell tracks SpaceX’s satellite activity, and said that at present “at least 14” of the company’s devices were “on their way down”.
Reports show that the satellite in question likely burned up as it attempted to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, meaning traces of it will be incredibly hard to find.
The fresh Starlink satellites are described as V2 Minis. These operate as smaller versions of SpaceX’s larger satellites and are designed to increase the company’s broadband capacity and coverage.
Mr Musk has previously spoken about the satellites, writing on Twitter that there was a “lot of new technology in Starlink V2, so we’re experiencing some issues, as expected”.
He added on the social media platform, which he also owns, last month: “Some [satellites] will be deorbited, others will be tested thoroughly before raising altitude above Space Station.”
Reports show that as opposed to using traditional copper cables, like similar electronic companies, SpaceX uses an array of satellites that are within the near-Earth orbit.
This allows it to offer customers superfast Internet to devices across the globe.
More to follow…
