Dunno if it's what happened in this case, but solar flares make the atmosphere bigger* which increases drag on satellites in low Earth orbit.
That said, the satellites have an expected life of 5 years so it's not necessarily a big deal. Their planned constellation is so large that it's dependent on having a nearly continuous churn of replacement satellites.
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Dunno if it's what happened in this case, but solar flares make the atmosphere bigger* which increases drag on satellites in low Earth orbit.
That said, the satellites have an expected life of 5 years so it's not necessarily a big deal. Their planned constellation is so large that it's dependent on having a nearly continuous churn of replacement satellites.
* This is a bit of an oversimplification
The atmosphere becomes less geoid-shaped during flares, right?
Day night cycles already do that. The atmosphere expands during solar storms, increasing drag.