Quote:
Originally Posted by red-beard
On Space-X and Starlink, I believe that Space-X uses commercial electronics, not hardened stuff. They "anticipate" some will be lost to solar storms. Redundancy is cheaper than over-the-top space rated electronics.
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Scott Manley on YouTube has a video explaining what happened to the satellites. Apparently the solar flare heated the upper atmosphere, essentially expanding it into the low orbit the satellites were initially in. Usually the satellites push themselves into a higher orbit once they're deployed, but it takes some time. In this case, they encountered unexpected atmospheric drag before they could move to their higher orbit.
So, the solar flare raised the atmosphere dragging satellites down; it didn't wreck the hardware.