Musk's Starlink service back up after brief outage affects thousands of users


SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks on a screen during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo

(Reuters) - Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink was back online for most users after a brief outage on Monday, according to tracking website Downdetector.com.

The number of U.S. users reporting issues fell below 1,000 as of 1:15 a.m. ET (0515 GMT), down from a peak of more than 43,000, Downdetector said. The platform tracks outages by collating status reports from multiple sources.

Starlink's website reported an outage early on Monday, without providing further details.

"Starlink is currently experiencing a service outage. Our team is investigating," it said.

The message has since been removed.

The commander of Ukraine's drone forces Robert Brovdi reported that the Starlink outage affected the entire frontline of the war with Russia starting at 07:28 local time (0428 GMT).

"Another global outage at SpaceX," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that the service started coming back around half an hour later.

Ukraine's forces are heavily reliant on SpaceX's Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and some drone operations. More than 50,000 terminals are currently in operation in Ukraine, according to officials.

Starlink, operated by Musk's SpaceX, provides internet services via a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites and is widely used in remote areas and conflict zones.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.

(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Sonia Cheema, Janane Venkatraman and Louise Heavens)

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