Starlink experiences major outage lasting hours
For what appears to be the first time, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation yesterday experienced a major outage, covering users across the entire world and lasting hours.
Apparently, users in the U.S., New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Mexico reported issues.
The global outage lasted for a few hours for most users, but connectivity returned with a “Degraded Service” message that meant it wasn’t fully operational. Some users on Reddit also reported that their connection kept going from degraded to offline. “Our team is investigating and will resolve as soon as possible,” the Starlink service message read. However, the company hasn’t released a public message acknowledging the outage.
Based on how this system is designed, it seems that only a software issue could cause an outage that affected so many users in so many different places. Even then, such an issue would have to impact multiple independent orbiting satellites, or multiple independent terminals, and do so all at once, an event which seems difficult if not impossible.
This all suggests that someone hacked the system and sabotaged it. Recently a professional hacker demonstrated that it was possible to hack into a single Starlink terminal. From there, it may be possible to access the software on board the satellites and sabotage that.
If so, SpaceX has a very serious problem.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
For what appears to be the first time, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation yesterday experienced a major outage, covering users across the entire world and lasting hours.
Apparently, users in the U.S., New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Mexico reported issues.
The global outage lasted for a few hours for most users, but connectivity returned with a “Degraded Service” message that meant it wasn’t fully operational. Some users on Reddit also reported that their connection kept going from degraded to offline. “Our team is investigating and will resolve as soon as possible,” the Starlink service message read. However, the company hasn’t released a public message acknowledging the outage.
Based on how this system is designed, it seems that only a software issue could cause an outage that affected so many users in so many different places. Even then, such an issue would have to impact multiple independent orbiting satellites, or multiple independent terminals, and do so all at once, an event which seems difficult if not impossible.
This all suggests that someone hacked the system and sabotaged it. Recently a professional hacker demonstrated that it was possible to hack into a single Starlink terminal. From there, it may be possible to access the software on board the satellites and sabotage that.
If so, SpaceX has a very serious problem.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
NSA initial connection. Should be okay soon. ?
I’m a US (northern Utah) Starlink user; been on the network for just over a year. I have an IT operations background, so it was natural for me to put up a connectivity monitor – I have a background process that checks for connectivity through Starlink every 60 seconds. The longest outage I had yesterday (August 30) was for 4 minutes at around 4:58 pm local time. That’s actually quite typical in my experience – long term my connection has an average of 98 seconds of downtime a day.
So whatever the outage was, it wasn’t system wide…
Tom Dilatush – very valuable insight, thanks. By the way, do you see any reason to expect that communications over Starlink would NOT be captured by the NSA?
Ray,
Expect construction of even more data center repositories.