On July 24, 2025, Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service run by SpaceX—suffered a global shutdown that left thousands of users offline for about 2.5 hours.
What happened
- The outage began around 3:13 p.m. ET. Internet analyst Doug Madory at Kentik said the service experienced a “total outage.”
- At its peak, over 60,000 users reported service issues via Downdetector.
- NetBlocks, which monitors connectivity, said global network levels dropped to only 16 percent of normal.
Official response
Starlink first posted on X: “Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution. We appreciate your patience. We’ll share an update once this issue is resolved.”
Elon Musk added: “Service will be restored shortly. Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
About 2.5 hours later, Starlink VP Michael Nicolls confirmed service had “mostly recovered,” blaming a failure in core internal software services. He said the company would fully investigate and prevent repeat incidents.
Users react
Many users posted their frustration online. On Reddit r/Starlink one wrote:
“Mine just came back online”
Another said:
“everyone freaking out goes to show just how reliable this product is.”
Meanwhile others were not so forgiving:
“Do i get some sort of prorated discount for the little over an hour and still down?”
Who was affected
- Users across the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia reported issues. Reports came in from Tennessee, Florida, Maryland, Northern California, central Texas, Sweden, Italy, and Colombia.
- Ukrainian military forces, who depend on Starlink for field communications, confirmed that the service was down along the entire front line. Their connection returned after roughly 150 minutes—the longest outage they’ve seen in the war.
Starlink provides satellite broadband to more than six million users in over 130–140 countries through more than 8,000 satellites. It is now expanding into direct‑to‑cellphone service with T-Mobile, known as “T‑Satellite.”
Starlink’s outage on July 24 shows that even a global internet provider can go dark. A failure in core software took Starlink offline worldwide for 2.5 hours. Service is back, and SpaceX says it will investigate fully. For users, this means ensuring you have backup options. And for Starlink, it means proving it can live up to its promise of reliable global connectivity.
