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SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service experienced one of its most significant international outages on Thursday, after an internal software failure disrupted connectivity for tens of thousands of users across the globe.
According to Downdetector as reported by Reuters, a crowdsourced outage tracking platform, users in the United States and Europe began reporting connectivity issues around 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), with over 61,000 reports logged at the peak of the incident.
Starlink, which serves more than six million users in over 140 countries and territories, confirmed the disruption via its official X (formerly Twitter) account, stating that it was “actively implementing a solution.” Full service was mostly restored after approximately two and a half hours.
Michael Nicolls, Starlink’s Vice President of Engineering, attributed the outage to the “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.” He issued an apology on X and assured users that efforts were underway to identify and resolve the root cause of the problem.
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SpaceX Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, also apologized for the incident, writing, “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy [the] root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
The rare disruption raised questions among analysts and cybersecurity experts, with some speculating whether the incident was the result of a botched software update or a possible cyberattack. Doug Madory, an analyst at internet observatory Kentik, described the outage as global and unprecedented in scale for Starlink.
“This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least since it became a major service provider,” Madory said.
The incident comes as Starlink continues to expand its network to meet growing demands for high-speed, low-latency internet—especially in remote areas with limited infrastructure. SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites since 2020, creating a vast constellation in low-Earth orbit.
The company is also developing advanced capabilities in partnership with T-Mobile, including a direct-to-cell text messaging service for emergency communication in rural and underserved areas.
Amid the outage, some experts drew comparisons to the global disruption caused by a faulty update to CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software in July 2024, which crippled Windows systems across multiple industries and led to mass flight cancellations.
“I’d speculate this is a bad software update, not entirely dissimilar to the CrowdStrike mess with Windows last year—or potentially a cyberattack,” said Gregory Falco, director of Cornell University’s space and cybersecurity lab.
It remains unclear whether Thursday’s outage impacted Starlink’s other services, including Starshield, SpaceX’s military-focused satellite program. Starshield supports critical U.S. defense and intelligence operations and holds multibillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon.
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