Starlink is a satellite internet constellation that has been manufactured by SpaceX. Operations are conducted by the international telecommunications provider Starlink Services LLC. Starlink provides coverage to approximately 130 territories and countries. SpaceX started launching the Starlink satellites as from 2019. As on May 2025, there were about 7,600 small satellites within this constellation.
Identifying the issues within Starlink
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network was back up and running on Friday as engineers hunted for the root cause of one of its biggest international outages the night before, a rare disruption for the powerful internet system set off by an internal software failure. Users in the U.S. and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) Thursday, according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker that said as many as 61,000 user reports to the site were made.
Outage tracking comprises the monitoring and documentation of service disruptions that happen within the IT environment. This is usually very specific and keeps track of when the disruption occurs, duration thereof, systems affect, severity and resolution. In Ukraine, where troops rely heavily on Starlink for battlefield communications, the outage affected combat operations as service was “down across the entire front,” said Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces.
An escalating software malfunction
Starlink, active in roughly 140 countries and territories and used by a growing number of militaries and government agencies, is a key source of revenue for Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The network has grown rapidly since 2020 into a disruptive force in the satellite communications industry. Satellite communication forms a vital part of modern technology and everyday life. It provides access to global connectivity and coverage.
In the broadcast and media industry for example it forms the basis of all operations. Starlink acknowledged the outage on its X account Thursday and said, “we are actively implementing a solution.” The service mostly resumed after 2.5 hours, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX vice president of Starlink Engineering, wrote on X. By 8 p.m., the company wrote on X that the “network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored.”
“The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network,” Nicolls said, apologizing for the disruption and vowing to find its cause. Musk also apologized: “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” the SpaceX CEO wrote on X. The outage was a rare hiccup for SpaceX’s most commercially sensitive business.
Brining the outage back to life
Experts speculated whether the service, known for its resilience and speedy development, was beset by a glitch, a botched software update or perhaps a cyberattack. The company, in a partnership with T-Mobile TMUS.O, is also expanding the constellation with larger, more powerful satellites to offer direct-to-cell text messaging services, a line of business in which mobile phone users can send emergency text messages through the network in rural areas.
SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites since 2020, building a uniquely distributed network in low-Earth orbit that has attracted intense demand from militaries, transportation industries and consumers in rural areas with poor access to traditional, fiber-based internet. An update to CrowdStrike’s CRWD.O widely used cybersecurity software led to worldwide flight cancellations and impacted industries around the globe in July last year. The outage disrupted internet services, affecting 8.5 million Microsoft MSFT.O Windows devices.
It was unclear whether Thursday’s outage affected SpaceX’s other satellite-based services that rely on the Starlink network. Starshield, the company’s military satellite business unit, has billions of dollars’ worth of contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. In spite of this minor issue, Starllink still has big plans for the future. Expansion plans for the satellite constellation are set at almost 42,000 satellites. This is in a bid to improve overall capacity and coverage. Predictions also abound about possible new service offerings as well as pricing models.
GCN.com/REUTERS.
