Starlink’s method of dodging solar storms may make it slower, for longer
- Reference: 1763443845
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/18/starlinks_method_of_dodging_solar/
- Source link:
That finding appears in a recent paper titled [1]A Deep Dive into the Impact of Solar Storms on LEO Satellite Networks [PDF] that considers four major coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that occurred between [2]May and October 2024.
It's well known that CMEs see the Sun belch out charged plasma that, when it comes into Earth’s immediate neighbourhood, can create solar storms that disturb magnetic fields and disrupt radio communications.
[3]
Solar storms also heat Earth’s upper atmosphere, expanding it just enough that low-Earth-orbit satellites like Starlink’s fleet of broadband birds feel a little more atmospheric drag and can lose some altitude.
[4]
[5]
When that happens, the paper suggests “Starlink responds by temporarily raising the affected satellites above their nominal altitude.”
[6]Project Kuiper becomes Amazon Leo as satellite network trickles into orbit
[7]Starlink tells the world it has over 150 sextillion IPv6 addresses
[8]SpaceX pulls plug on 2,500 Starlink terminals tied to Myanmar fraud farms
[9]Starlink is burning up one or two satellites a day in Earth’s atmosphere
SpaceX’s broadband biz typically lets those sats return to their original altitude within a day or two. But according to the paper: “This corrective action triggers a cascading effect, with orbital adjustments propagating across neighboring satellites in both spatial and temporal dimensions. Full stabilization of the orbit often takes 3–4 days. These dynamic adjustments can disrupt satellite links and routing paths, contributing to performance issues such as a sustained increase in round-trip time.”
“This finding raises fundamental questions about the suitability of today’s autonomous constellation management during extreme space weather events,” the paper adds. “The self-driving algorithms, optimized for normal operations, may inadvertently amplify storm impacts by triggering chains of orbital adjustments.”
Another of the paper’s findings is that not all satellites in a broadband constellation are equally vulnerable to solar storms. Satellites at high latitudes and those most exposed to the sun during storm peaks experience the most significant orbital decay.
[10]
The study drew data from 76 RIPE Atlas probes connected to the Starlink autonomous system (AS 14593), which ping the network’s assets every four minutes, plus other datasets that describe the position of satellites, and the intensity of solar storms.
While the study found degraded performance during solar storms, Starlink kept operating during the four events the paper considers. The authors suggest their study, and other work on the performance of space broadband, is nonetheless necessary because such services have become an important part of the global internet, especially in remote areas and disaster zones. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3748749.3749094
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/13/starlink_solar_storm/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRxR0yQViTQoRAj5W4Wc4wAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRxR0yQViTQoRAj5W4Wc4wAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRxR0yQViTQoRAj5W4Wc4wAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/14/project_kuiper_amazon_leo/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/nded/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/spacex_starlink_myanmar/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/06/starlink_vaporizes_satellites_daily/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRxR0yQViTQoRAj5W4Wc4wAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
This is another reason that the FCC's intention to allow low-earth satellite networks to participate in the US's new broadband expansion is wrong-headed (the others being, compared to land-based fibre-optic, lower speed and higher maintenance cost).
> compared to land-based fibre-optic
Fiber only goes so far. Up here in north Maine I'm near the limit of consumer-price fiber. I think my telco put fiber in as a tax write-off (or to get grants). Here 5G could serve me (everybody has cellfones so there's payback for tower pods). Musk's panels are another choice when you get out in the sticks.
Not to mention when you get OUT in the sticks! Break your leg on the last 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail, or north Montana, or cruising the South Pacific, non-geosync satellites are good to have.
No relation
Starlink autonomous system. Hopefully isn't related to Tesla FSD
Didn't happen in the last one.
I was watching my stats very carefully as the latest huge CME hit, and Starlink didn't miss a hit, unlike last time.
2 years' use of it says that pretty much every aspect of the service has improved over that time, and I'm quite sure they're continuously tuning how they handle space weather. Experience of operating will help them hit the sweet satellite reliability/service resilience spot.
Quite handy the latest solar max seems to be coming hard and early!
That's a better option
Than finding out too late it is a bigger CME than observations indicated. If there's another Carrington event, how fast will it travel to Earth compared to a more "normal" CME like last week's? Will we know instantly that it is way bigger than anything encountered for nearly two centuries? How long will it take to propagate that information to those who need it?
Probably better to overreact just in case, than to try to only move just enough to avoid problems. Maybe there's nothing they can do about another Carrington, and it'll fry every satellite in orbit except possibly a few military grade ones built with special rad hard chips. But there are bound to be bigger ones than we've seen in the satellite era eventually, even if they aren't quite THAT big.
Re: That's a better option
This. No alternative reaction seems to be proposed in the paper (or mentioned in the article anyway, I confess I haven't read the actual paper), while what SpaceX currently does allows the constellation to continue operating effectively, so I'm not sure what the authors point actually is. SpaceX don't want to raise the orbits of their satellites unless they have to, because it uses propellant and thus shortens the lifespan. But letting them get dragged out of the sky by a bulging upper atmosphere would shorten their lifespans even more, so it seems like a reasonable tradeoff!
meh
so my internet connection didn't go down and latency went up a bit for a few days. If I was playing Fortnite or whatever in an RV I might have a cow, but apart from that....