New York (BN24) – Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, suffered a widespread outage Thursday that left tens of thousands of users offline, marking one of the most significant disruptions in the service’s history.
The company acknowledged the network failure in a post on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution.” The outage began around 3:13 p.m. ET and appeared to affect users globally.
Musk also addressed the issue directly on X, saying, “Service will be restored shortly. Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
According to Downdetector, which tracks service disruptions via user reports and real-time status indicators, there were at least 25,767 reports of Starlink service problems by 4:18 p.m. ET. Reports spanned North America, Europe, and other regions served by the satellite-based provider.
Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, told Reuters the service appeared to be experiencing a “total outage” during the initial phase. “They haven’t had one like this in a long time,” he said, adding that the scale and suddenness of the interruption were highly unusual for the network.
While Starlink has previously faced localized disruptions, a global blackout of this magnitude is rare for the satellite-based internet platform, which boasts millions of users and plays a key role in providing broadband in remote areas, disaster zones, and military operations.
As of Thursday evening, SpaceX had not released a full technical explanation of what caused the failure, though engineers were reportedly working to restore functionality and identify any vulnerabilities in the network’s architecture.
The outage renewed concerns about the reliability of space-based communications services, especially as Starlink becomes increasingly integrated into global infrastructure, from rural connectivity and aviation to defense systems and humanitarian aid networks.
