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SpaceX launched 49 Starlink broadband communications satellites into a 210 × 350 km staging orbit for on-orbit assessments prior to raising the satellites to their operational circular 550 km orbits. The launch took place during the recovery phase of a minor geomagnetic storm rated G1 on the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center G-scale. According to SpaceX, "atmospheric drag [increases] up to 50% higher than during previous launches" was experienced in the staging orbit. The increased drag on the Starlink vehicles led operators to command them into a low-drag configuration in an attempt to decrease altitude loss rates. Despite this mitigation, 38 of the 49 satellites could not be recovered from the low-drag configuration for orbit raising and subsequently re-entered the atmosphere and burned up on or about 07 February 2022.The loss of the Starlink satellites was noteworthy for several reasons. Most notably, this is the first public record of a simultaneous loss of a large number of operational satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) due solely to atmospheric