On July 24, users of Starlink began reporting service loss across the United States and Europe. The outage, linked to a backend failure in SpaceX’s satellite internet infrastructure, surfaced during mid-afternoon on the East Coast. Reports poured in, and Downdetector logged over sixty thousand complaints, giving a clear sense of how widespread the issue was.
The company later acknowledged the incident, saying something broke down within their internal systems, specifically, the parts that keep the core of the network running. Michael Nicolls, who oversees engineering for Starlink, said services came back after about two and a half hours. He apologized to customers, and Elon Musk did the same, promising to get to the bottom of it and fix whatever caused it.
Even though the outage didn’t last long, it definitely raised some eyebrows. Cybersecurity professionals pointed out that Starlink rarely goes dark like this. Doug Madory, a network analyst at Kentik, said it was likely the biggest service failure Starlink has had so far. Some speculated it might have been triggered by a flawed software push or even outside interference.
Starlink now connects over six million people in more than 140 countries, using a massive constellation of satellites that orbit relatively close to Earth. The system is constantly evolving to handle more traffic, and there’s also a partnership underway with T-Mobile to support texting in remote areas.
There’s still no word on whether the glitch affected Starshield, the division that handles military and government contracts. Either way, the outage highlighted just how much users now rely on this satellite network, and how even high-tech systems aren’t immune to failure. Some analysts speculated whether the event was caused by an internal misconfiguration or if malicious interference played a role. Gregory Falco from Cornell pointed out that it resembled last year’s CrowdStrike incident, which caused major operational issues across industries by impacting millions of Windows systems.
Starlink currently serves over six million users across approximately one hundred forty regions, supported by a growing fleet of more than eight thousand low Earth orbit satellites. To expand coverage, SpaceX is also working with T-Mobile to enable satellite-based messaging in remote areas. The recent outage, which briefly cut global traffic to 16 percent, occurred soon after the launch of this direct-to-cell feature, raising concerns about stability during major rollouts.
It is still unclear if Starshield, SpaceX’s defense-focused division, was affected. However, its role in sensitive military and intelligence communications means even a short disruption could trigger national security concerns, especially after Ukrainian officials confirmed the blackout disrupted front-line operations.
