NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: Josh_from_Canada on 02/13/2022 10:01 pm
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How often are satellites damaged by Solar Flares?
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Not
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How often are satellites damaged by Solar Flares?
Infrequently, but above a threshold, pretty severe damage, up to and including failure, are known.
https://www.voanews.com/a/solar-storms-found-to-pose-big-risks-to-technology/6434754.html
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/great-halloween-solar-storm-2003
The storms affected over half of the Earth-orbiting spacecraft, intermittently disrupting satellite TV and radio services and damaging a Japanese scientific satellite beyond repair. The solar activity also sent several deep-space missions into safe mode or complete shutdown and destroyed the Martian Radiation Environment Experiment aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey mission. At the height of the storms, astronauts aboard the International Space Station had to take cover from the high radiation levels, which had only happened twice before in the mission's history.
The SpaceX Starlink of Feb 3, 2020 is the only one where satellites failed due to drag upon a normal launch, as far as I know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm
Some satellites in polar orbits lost control for several hours. GOES weather satellite communications were interrupted, causing weather images to be lost. NASA's TDRS-1 communication satellite recorded over 250 anomalies caused by the increased particles flowing into its sensitive electronics.[6]
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
Yes, I know wikipedia is a tertiary or worse source, but I was curious myself, so I googled it.
I couldn't find a link to a list or graph from a primary source. Yes, I'm lazy, watching the SuperBowl.
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Just to be clear (in case that inspired the question), the mostly lost batch of Starlinks were not affected by the solar flare directly as far as we know. The solar activity increased upper atmospheric density and caught them out before orbit raising.