Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network experienced a major global outage on Thursday, leaving an estimated 61,000 users offline across the U.S. and Europe. Outage tracker Downdetector logged the spike in reports at around 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).
With more than 6 million subscribers spanning roughly 140 countries and regions, Starlink acknowledged the disruption on its X account, assuring users that it was "actively implementing a solution." Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink Engineering, later confirmed that service mostly resumed after 2.5 hours.
"The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network," Nicolls wrote on X, apologizing for the interruption and pledging to identify the root cause. CEO Elon Musk also chimed in: "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again."
Experts were surprised by the scale and duration of the interruption. Doug Madory from internet analysis firm Kentik called it "likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider." Speculation ranged from a botched software update to a potential cyberattack, though SpaceX has pointed squarely at internal software failures.
Since 2020, SpaceX has launched over 8,000 satellites to build a highly distributed network in low-Earth orbit. The system has attracted demand from militaries, transport industries, and rural residents seeking reliable broadband where fiber-based options are limited.
As Starlink continues to scale, its resilience will be tested by both technical hiccups and growing global reliance on satellite internet. For now, the network is back online—and observers are watching closely to see how SpaceX strengthens its software defenses.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
