A significant global outage hit Starlink's satellite internet service on Thursday, July 24, 2025, leaving tens of thousands of users offline for approximately 2.5 hours. The disruption prompted an apology from Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which operates Starlink.
Cause of the Outage
According to Michael Nicolls, Starlink's Vice President of Engineering, the outage was caused by a failure of key internal software services that operate the core network. This rare hiccup affected users across multiple continents, including the US, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia ¹ ².
Impact on Users
The outage had a significant impact on users who rely on Starlink for critical communications and work. Many users reported issues on Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker, with over 60,000 user reports surfacing in the United States alone. Users in the UK, Colombia, and other countries also experienced disruptions ³ ¹.
Elon Musk's Response
Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to apologize for the outage, stating, "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again." He also assured users that services would be restored shortly ⁴.
Starlink's Commitment to Reliability
Starlink's engineering team worked to resolve the issue, and services were gradually restored. The company emphasized its commitment to providing a highly reliable network and promised to conduct a thorough root cause analysis to prevent similar outages in the future ¹.
Conclusion
The global outage was a rare disruption for Starlink, a service known for its resilience and rapid growth. With over 6 million users across roughly 140 countries and territories, Starlink is one of the largest satellite internet providers in the world. The company is taking steps to prevent similar outages and ensure the reliability of its network ⁵.
