SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites into space in May. To date, three of them have failed - and the company does not name the reasons for the breakdown.
Elon Musk's SpaceX launched 60 satellites into Earth's orbit on May 24 as part of the Starlink project, which aims to provide Internet to all corners of the Earth. Last week, a company spokesperson sent a statement to Business Insider asking for the current state of SpaceX's ambitious project.
It turned out three of the 60 satellites crashed last month. SpaceX declined to comment on the situation. This means that the company either does not know the cause of the breakdowns, or does not want to disclose the information.
Most likely, SpaceX has not yet figured out what caused the breakdown. But if Elon Musk's company plans to create a network of 12 thousand satellites, it certainly should find out the cause of the failures, because the loss of 5% of Starlink devices will be very expensive.
SpaceX, meanwhile, said it designed the satellites so that they do not contribute to the accumulation of space debris. Towards the end of their service life, they will deliberately leave orbit and head towards the Earth, where they will burn up in the upper atmosphere. The company plans to demonstrate this mechanism in the near future on two satellites - out of the remaining 57.
The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket with 60 satellites took place on May 24. After deployment, several Starlink satellites were even observed from Earth: they looked like luminous dots, and some mistook them for alien ships.