A major solar flare on February 17 had the potential to do some serious damage to both geostationary and LEO satellites. When the superheated mass, known as a coronal mass, reaches the Earth’s magnetic field, which takes around 48 hours, it interacts with the field which sets off a geomagnetic storm and can cause damage to satellites and ground based communications. This major flare is thought to be associated with the imminent sun spot maximum, an 11-year cycle which will peak later this year. At the time of writing there are no reports of satellite outages but as the sunspot count continues to rise these occurrences are likely to become more common.