The Starlink internet service operated by SpaceX suffered an unusual large-scale outage on Thursday which disconnected thousands of users worldwide thus generating doubts about system reliability.
The service interruption started at 3 p.m. Eastern time when Downdetector recorded more than 60,000 users experiencing connectivity problems. Starlink Engineering VP Michael Nicolls explained that the network core systems experienced internal software failures which caused the outage before the service returned to normal within 2.5 hours.
CEO Elon Musk apologized to users while promising to identify the source of the problem to stop similar incidents from happening again. Starlink operates as one of SpaceX’s most valuable commercial ventures and serves as a fundamental element of the company’s future business strategy because it serves more than 6 million users across 140 countries.
The outage reached historic proportions in terms of both its extent and duration according to industry experts. According to Kentik analyst Doug Madory this outage represents the longest worldwide service disruption since Starlink started providing major internet services.
The company has not revealed any impact on its military satellite business Starshield but analysts believe the fault shares similarities with the global CrowdStrike software outage from last year.
Since 2020 Starlink has deployed more than 8,000 satellites to meet increasing worldwide internet demand through its partnership with T-Mobile for direct-to-device services.
