SpaceX's Starlink suffered one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked tens of thousands of users offline, a rare disruption for Elon Musk's powerful satellite internet system.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation that works as an international telecommunication provider, part of the American aerospace company SpaceX, founded by controversial billionaire Elon Musk. The network provides coverage to around 130 countries and territories, aiming to provide global mobile broadband.

Tens of thousands of people across the globe have been impacted by the Starlink outage, which has prevented users in multiple countries from accessing the internet

After facing a global outage for nearly 3 hours, Starlink announced on Friday that the network issue affecting its internet service has been resolved.

Reports of service disruptions flooded outage tracker DownDetector, with users experiencing internet outages and, in some cases, total blackouts. Starlink and its founder, Elon Musk, confirmed the outage and said they were investigating the issue.

T-Mobile's T-Satellite service, powered by Elon Musk's Starlink, could backfire once a speculated 12-month exclusivity deal ends.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has bought Starlink services — but also fell into the crosshairs of Musk. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in 2024, Musk said FEMA was blocking deliveries of the terminals, a claim the agency called false. FEMA did not respond to repeated requests for comment on its use of Starlink.