An investigation of Starlink's performance during the May '24 solar superstorm

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have revolutionized the consumer-grade Internet market. The main giant of this landscape, Starlink, is already operating the world's largest LEO satellite fleet of 8,000 satellites made of non-radiation-hardened components. The recent May 2024 solar superstorm created an opportunity to evaluate the performance and reliability of such a network under intense solar events. In this paper, we conduct a statistical study on the packet loss, latency, and orbital drag experienced by satellites from a long-term perspective. The results indicate marginal inflation in loss and latency during and immediately after the superstorm. While increasing the observation window size dilutes the inflation under regular performance fluctuations. Additionally, we list out a few roadblocks that need to be addressed to pinpoint the impact on any specific satellite, along with the end-user's network connectivity experience caused by solar radiation.