Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite‑internet service, suffered its first major global outage of 2025 on July 24, knocking out connectivity for 2.5 hours.
The interruption affected millions of users across the U.S., Europe, New Zealand, and beyond. Here's a deep, user‑friendly dive into what went wrong, how it impacted users, and where things stand now.
How and When Did the Outage Start?
Around 3:15 PM EDT (19:15 UTC) on July 24, monitoring services began detecting massive spikes in error reports—tens of thousands of users seeing messages like “no healthy upstream.” Within minutes, services like Downdetector flagged massive outages.
By 4:05 PM, Starlink acknowledged the disruption via a message on X (formerly Twitter), saying they were "actively implementing a solution." At 5:28 PM, traffic began returning, and by about 6:23 PM, Starlink said service had “mostly recovered.”
In total, the blackout lasted roughly 150 minutes, making it the longest major outage Starlink has seen since it became a major provider.
What Caused the Outage?
What really brought Starlink offline? According to Michael Nicolls, Starlink’s VP of Engineering, the outage stemmed from a failure in key internal software services operating the network’s core.
In plain terms: a glitch somewhere in the network’s brains caused everything to fall apart for a couple hours.
Elon Musk personally acknowledged the issue: “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Experts have speculated it might have been due to:
- A buggy software update
- A misconfiguration in core services
- In rare scenarios, even a cyberattack—though nothing has been confirmed
- In short, something inside Starlink’s command/control software hit the fan—and service went down nearly worldwide.
What Was the Impact on Users?
At peak, NetBlocks reported global connectivity down to just 16 percent of normal levels—almost total collapse.
Downdetector saw upwards of 61,000 reports in minutes.
Ukrainian forces, heavily reliant on Starlink terminals for battlefield communication, lost service across the front lines for the full outage duration—marking their longest disruption yet during the war.
Everyday users—from remote homes to ships at sea, businesses and telecom partners (like T‑Mobile’s new satellite messaging service)—felt the pinch.
Recovery & What’s Happening Now?
Once engineers dialed in the fix, service returned fairly evenly across regions. By 6:23 PM EDT, network performance was largely back up even if some edge cases lingered.
Starlink promised a full root‑cause investigation and pledged fixes to prevent a repeat. Musk and Starlink leadership emphasized company commitment to reliability—but also admitted they hadn’t fully pinpointed every detail publicly yet.
What Users Should Know & Do
If you're using Starlink—or thinking about it—here’s what to keep in mind:
- Expect rare disruptions like this, though they’re still unusual.
- Have a backup option (like mobile data or a local ISP) if continuous uptime matters.
- Check official Starlink channels or status pages for updates.
- Periodically reboot your terminal and check for firmware updates.
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