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Elon Musk’s Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet arm, has faced one of the biggest outages in recent times, affecting thousands of users in North America and Europe. The incident was detected around 3 p.m. EDT on Thursday, with over 61,000 reports flooding platforms like Downdetector.
‘Starlink Services Down’ started trending big time on social media as affected users reported connection losses. This news soon became a major event in the satellite internet sector.
According to Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink Engineering, the outage stemmed from a failure in key internal software systems that manage the core network. “Apologies for the disruption, and we are working to determine the root cause,” he shared on X. Starlink assured users that services had been mostly restored within two and a half hours.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also acknowledged the issue, writing, “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
The company confirmed, “The network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored. We understand how important connectivity is and apologize for the disruption.”
Considering the construction of a line with several users, Starlink has seen increased reliance in remote, broadband regions. The company is currently servicing approximately 6 million subscribers in 140 countries. The outage raised questions regarding the infrastructure resilience of SpaceX’s Starlink, as the company seems to promote global reach.
Analysts are also concerned about the unusual scale of the Starlink outage. Doug Madory, an internet infrastructure expert, said, “This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider.”
As part of its expansion, Starlink is partnering with T-Mobile to launch direct-to-cell messaging, designed to enhance emergency connectivity even in areas where traditional towers are unavailable.
Even though it was a short-term Starlink outage, the incident clearly indicates that we are now heavily reliant on low-Earth orbit connectivity. Since 2020, SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites. Network stability will continue to remain a key element with the growth of Starlink's coverage and operations.
The incident may slow down a bit of momentum, but it is also a great reminder of how far Starlink has come in bringing space-based Internet into the mainstream. Fixes are already being applied, and the authorities are removing redundancies. The service continues to be one of the most ambitious and transformative tech rollouts in recent history.
