Global Starlink outage explained: Here’s what really happened

After a rare global Starlink outage triggered confusion and panic around the world, especially in areas like Ukraine, where internet access could literally be a matter of life and death, the company hasn’t yet given a clear explanation, so theories abound.

Indeed, shortly after users noticed Starlink-powered internet was down, the company confirmed it in a post on its account on social media X, letting everyone know it was aware of it and working on resolving the issue on July 24. Specifically, it said:

As it happens, Internet Analysis Director at network intelligence platform Kentik, Doug Madory, kept on top of the developments, informing his followers on X at the time about “LEO satellite operator Starlink currently experiencing a total outage beginning at 19:13 UTC today.”

In the meantime, Elon Musk, the CEO of Starlink’s parent company SpaceX, also commented on the outage on his X account, apologizing to anyone affected and assuring them that “SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Two hours into the outage and without an improvement, Madory noted that it was “Starlink’s longest outage since becoming a major service provider.” Finally, a restoration of traffic to Starlink started at 21:28 UTC, which Madory pointed out was “2 hours and 15 minutes after the outage began.”

On top of that, Starlink’s Vice President of Engineering, Michael Nicolls, announced on X that the network had “mostly recovered” after the outage, which “lasted approximately 2.5 hours,” himself apologizing for the incident and specifying a “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network” as the cause.

Wide implications of Starlink outage

Meanwhile, although for many people, the Starlink outage caused only a minor inconvenience, in areas like Ukraine, it was a lot more serious. Notably, the Ukrainian military’s commander of drone forces, Robert Brovdi, shared on Telegram at 19:41 UTC that “Starlink is down across the entire front.”

He later updated the post to say that about 150 minutes later, the connection came back. Furthermore, he added that the situation had emphasized the risk of relying on the systems, urging diversification of communication and connectivity methods. As Brovdi wrote:

“Combat missions were performed without a (video) feed, battlefield reconnaissance was done with strike (drones).” 

Elsewhere, T-Mobile and Starlink have been expanding their satellite-to-mobile service beta tests since earlier this year to include AT&T and Verizon customers, allowing them to send satellite texts for free until July, and making it the first and only space-based mobile network in the U.S. that automatically connects mobile phones in areas outside the reach of any cellular networks.