When the Sky Went Dark: Starlink’s Massive Outage Exposes Network Vulnerabilities

On July 25, 2025, the Starlink network experienced a global network outage that lasted approximately 2.5 hours, disrupting service for millions of users across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and other regions. Over 61,000 users reported the issue, with rural and remote regions and critical industries, where satellite Internet is vital for communications, feeling the brunt of the impact. According to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, the disruption had serious consequences for critical infrastructure and military operations, particularly in war-torn Ukraine, where it cut off vital battlefield communications across the front lines. Additionally, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that Starshield, the miliary-focused communications service, was taken offline during the outage. Furthermore, industries including mining operations, maritime services, and emergency response systems also experienced delays and communication breakdowns. This incident raised concerns over network reliability and highlighted the vulnerability of relying on a single provider for wireless network infrastructure.

On the same day, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s Vice President (VP) of Starlink Engineering, announced on X that the issue had been resolved and service was fully restored. He attributed the outage to a failure in key internal software systems that power the core network.

Interestingly, in the days following the outage, many users reported significantly improved speeds, jumping from typical rates of 110–150 Megabits per Second (Mbps) to 200–250 Mbps, with some seeing peaks over 346 Mbps. This led to speculation that the outage was linked to ongoing network upgrades behind the scenes—something that may have temporarily knocked the network offline, but ultimately left it stronger.

The disruption came amid a period of rapid expansion for Starlink. While Starlink’s user base has grown due to its expanding Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mega-constellation that offers broad coverage and low latency, SpaceX has been upgrading its network to meet increasing demands for speed and bandwidth, which includes advancements to Direct-to-Cellular (D2C) capabilities, including texting, voice calls, and features aimed at turning standard mobile phones into satellite-connected devices.

Despite the outage, the rapid recovery was considered quick compared to previous network disruptions. Unlike terrestrial networks —which are static, regional, and often take hours to restore—this satellite network was back online in under 3 hours, all while operating at high velocities in space. In another incident in 2022, Viasat, an American satellite company, was hacked by Russia just 1 hour before the invasion of Ukraine, which caused sudden and significant communications loss for the Ukrainian military. Viasat immediately initiated stabilization and security protocols, restoring most services within hours and achieving full recovery in a few days. Similarly, in 2024, an Intelsat satellite disintegrated in orbit, disrupting communications temporarily. However, its resilient, multi-layered high-throughput network enabled quick service restoration.

For comparison, terrestrial telco networks have experienced significantly longer outages in the past. For example, in 2022, KDDI Corp (Japan) suffered a network disruption that lasted over 60 hours and affected over 30 million customers. During the outage, customers were unable to make phone calls and access data services. In the same year, Rogers Communications (Canada) experienced a nationwide outage that left customers without phone and Internet service for about 17 hours, with some users dealing with days of disruption. This impacted essential services across sectors such as banking, healthcare, transportation, and government operations.

Satellite networks are still an essential service, providing great value to customers either as a main or complementary communications tool. It is evident that both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks are prone to network failures and cyberthreats as shown by past case studies, and that will continue to happen in the future. However, the value that satellite connectivity brings—such as reliability in remote areas, communications during disasters where terrestrial networks are impacted, and support for critical infrastructure—far outweighs the downsides. In fact, the rate at which satellite operators are resolving their system failures demonstrates their abilities and growing maturity of their networks. Therefore, there is no need for customers and end users to worry about the capabilities of current satellite network infrastructure in delivering reliable mobile connectivity services.  

Satellite operators will regularly perform network upgrades to boost capacity and provide improved quality services to their customers. Besides Starlink, providers like Globalstar, Project Kuiper, and OneWeb are also expanding their constellations and customer bases. To avoid major sudden outages in the future, companies can take the following steps:

• Implement Rigorous Pre-Release Testing and Staged Rollouts: To avoid major outages for systems serving large satellite networks and users around the world, operators need to be thorough with their testing protocols. This means simulating failure scenarios, doing strong internal Quality Assurance (QA), and rolling out changes gradually. A phased rollout makes it easier to catch issues early and roll things back if needed. While many operators have implemented such strategies, managing updates and maintaining service quality in real time is getting trickier and more challenging as satellite numbers and user traffic increases. In this context, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can play an important role here—by detecting and isolating anomalies faster, helping to reroute traffic, and even predict failures before they happen.
• Develop Enhanced Redundancy and Failover Mechanisms: If a network issue occurs in one part of the network, operators should ensure that it will not affect other parts of the network. To do so, they should strengthen redundancy in both infrastructure and software systems, including implementing intelligent failover systems. These measures can help to reroute traffic, isolate faulty components, and keep parts of the service up and running—which is especially crucial for users in the emergencies and defense communications sectors.
• Continue Investing in Network Resilience and Security: Service outages can happen due to various internal and external factors, such as hardware or software issues, and even environmental factors and cyberattacks. To keep services running smoothly, satellite operators need to proactively bolster their defenses through robust cybersecurity measures, constant system monitoring, and diversifying their infrastructure assets. One increasingly important strategy is enabling multi-orbit connectivity, so devices can switch between LEO, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), or terrestrial networks if there is an issue with satellites in a certain orbit. As cyberthreats continue to increase, the potential impact of a breach is increasing, too. That means operators will need to stay vigilant and keep evolving their security capacities.