Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider, Starlink, experienced a significant network outage on Thursday that lasted for approximately two and a half hours. The disruption affected tens of thousands of users, with over 60,000 reports logged on Downdetector, a website that tracks service outages, at the peak of the incident.
Starlink is owned and operated by SpaceX, the aerospace company also led by Musk. At around 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Musk addressed the outage on his social media platform, X, apologizing for the disruption and assuring customers that service would be restored shortly.
By 6:23 p.m. ET, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink engineering, confirmed via X that the network had “mostly recovered” from the outage. Starlink later announced that full service had been restored roughly two hours after Nicolls’ update.
The outage came as Starlink’s direct-to-cell-phone service continues to expand rapidly. Musk had previously posted on X that this service, powered by a partnership with T-Mobile, was “growing fast.” T-Mobile’s Starlink-enabled satellite service, branded as T-Satellite, was reported to be operating normally throughout the outage, with no network impacts.
This service is designed to provide connectivity in areas without access to traditional cellular towers, improving phone coverage in remote or underserved locations. However, recent studies indicate that as Starlink’s user base grows, internet speeds and service reliability can decline due to increased network demand.
Musk’s social media platform X, which he acquired in 2022 after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, has also faced several outages in recent months. Notably, the platform experienced disruptions earlier in July and again in May. Following the May outage, Musk acknowledged the need for “major operational improvements” to address reliability issues.
Thursday’s Starlink outage highlights the challenges that come with scaling satellite internet services amid growing demand. While the technology promises broader connectivity in remote areas, maintaining consistent service quality remains an ongoing hurdle for Starlink and its parent company, SpaceX.
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