Thousands of Starlink users across five continents lost internet access on Thursday night after a large outage hit the satellite network. Reports of problems started around 9pm Central European Time and kept climbing into the early hours.
More than 60,000 people reported issues on Down Detector. Most of them described a “total blackout”. Many users shared screenshots showing a message that read “no healthy upstream”, which usually means the user’s equipment could not connect to the satellite network.
The outage hit users in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Down Detector listed complaints from Colombia, Italy’s Sardinia, Stockholm, and New Hampshire. People on X said they could not connect at all, with some still offline the next morning.
Elon Musk posted six hours after the first reports that service had been restored. He said, “The network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored. We understand how important connectivity is and apologise for the disruption.”
No explanation was given for what caused the problem. Musk later added that SpaceX “will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again”, but did not go into detail.
Who Is Starlink For?
Starlink is available in around 130 countries and territories. The network is especially common in rural or hard to reach places where traditional broadband is unreliable or unavailable. Some people use it for work on farms or in remote areas. Others connect from moving vehicles or boats.
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The day before the outage, SpaceX had announced that T-Mobile’s Starlink powered mobile service had launched. That service lets mobile phones connect through satellites, which means users can stay connected even far outside normal coverage zones.
What Did Users Experience During The Outage?
People across the globe started noticing problems on Thursday night. Many took to Down Detector and X to check if they were the only ones offline and of course, they weren’t.
The main complaint was complete disconnection. For some, the router showed no bars at all. Others were stuck with error messages and blinking lights. The problem didn’t seem linked to weather or local interference.
Even though Musk said service had been fixed, replies under his posts showed that not everyone was back online. Some users were still having problems well into Friday morning. This raised questions about whether the outage really had ended worldwide.
The sudden silence from Starlink didn’t help. Musk apologised, but neither he nor the company gave any information on the technical issue behind it.
SpaceX and Musk did say that the problem would be dealt with, but they have not shared what caused it or how it was fixed. That makes it difficult for users to know whether it could happen again.
Some users say this was their first outage, and they’re happy to wait it out. Others are less patient, especially those who need these services to use all the time. In some areas, Starlink is the only option, which means outages like this hit harder. Especially in instances where it is used for essential services.
