Elon Musk's Starlink says it's struggling to fulfill orders for its internet kits because of the microchip shortage

• SpaceX's Starlink says a microchip shortage has delayed production of its internet kits.
• The shortage "has impacted our ability to fulfill orders," Starlink says on its website.

SpaceX's satellite internet service, Starlink, says it's suffering production delays because of the global chip shortage.

"Silicon shortages have delayed production which has impacted our ability to fulfill orders," a message on Starlink's customer support page says. PCMag was first to notice the message, saying it was added Thursday evening.

At the same point, references to Starlink's beta testing disappeared from its website, PCMag reported.

Starlink was supposed to come out of beta-testing mode in October, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet in September. Exiting the beta phase would allow Starlink to expand its service further.

Insider verified that Starlink's homepage contained references to beta testing before Thursday, but the references vanished after then.

It's not clear whether Starlink has come out of its beta phase and Starlink hasn't officially announced anything about it yet.

SpaceX didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

SpaceX has previously blamed chip shortages for impacting Starlink's production.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's chief operating officer, said during a Space Symposium panel in August that the worldwide microchip shortage had delayed new Starlink user terminals.

Bret Johnsen, the company's chief financial officer, said in a panel discussion during the Satellite 2021 conference in September that global supply chain issues had hit SpaceX's production line.

Hans Koenigsmann, former SpaceX vice president and the company's seventh hire, told Insider in an interview that one of Starlink's challenges at the moment is production because there are more user terminals than satellites.