Powerful Solar Storm to Doom 40 New Starlink Satellites - Here's Why That's A Problem. Imagine you've invested $12 billion in a new satellite system and you're about to launch 40 more satellites into space. But one day before the launch, a solar storm hits and fries all of your satellites. This is exactly what happened with SpaceX's Starlink project this morning. A powerful solar storm caused them to lose contact with their satellites just hours before they were set to be launched. Now, these satellites are going nowhere unless someone can figure out how to turn them on from afar or find a way to get them back into space before the sun has another solar storm. It's unclear if SpaceX will be able to fix this problem, but it's a good reminder that we need to protect ourselves from solar storms too...read on for why! What is a solar storm? A solar storm is an ejection of plasma and magnetic field from the sun. Solar storms happen when the sun's magn