In March, a Soyuz-2.1b launcher placed the first 16 satellites of the future constellation into orbit from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome.
Ukraine and Russia are each accelerating, on their own side, the construction of sovereign satellite constellations in order to secure their communications, particularly military ones.
The two belligerents are seeking alternatives to Starlink. The challenge is to have reliable infrastructure that is less exposed to the decisions of an American operator.
In February, Starlink terminals used by the Russian army lost their connection. This outage disrupted units engaged on the front.
Kyiv, for its part, has suffered several recent setbacks with this partner. This week again, terminals of the military version Starshield were throttled, after a previous episode that occurred in October.
This episode has likely accelerated the timetable of the Russian Rassvet (“Dawn”) project, which is already well under way. Moscow intends to equip itself with its own satellite communications system.
Yet 156 satellites were supposed to be in orbit by the end of 2026, and no date has yet been announced for the next launch. The commercial launch of the “Russian Starlink” is scheduled for 2027, with several pricing plans depending on the terminal chosen.
The announced operational orbit is around 800 km. This altitude allows each satellite to cover more surface area, but it requires more powerful signals.
Rassvet will not need to match Starlink’s 11,200 satellites to achieve the intended objective. The Russian constellation is still only a fragment.
“There is little doubt that the system is either in a testing phase as part of the conflict or already being used operationally,” he said. According to Ukrainian intelligence, “Russia is already using the Rassvet satellite system over Ukrainian territory for military purposes.”.
Two images of drones bearing the Bureau 1440 logo have appeared on social media. Ukrainian forces are also circulating numerous photos there of destroyed devices and their contents.
The Rassvet project involves a total of about fifty Russian and Belarusian companies, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. It considers it “crucial” to block the program’s logistics and technology chains “right now.”.
For the first stage, the choice fell on GomSpace’s proven, ready-to-use satellite platform. The Obria Nano satellite remains, at this stage, a trial balloon.
No subsequent timetable has been announced. It is therefore too early to know when the Ukrainian army will be able to use the first terminals. A constellation capable of providing stable communications continuously remains a multi-year undertaking.
Ukraine is not alone in wanting to reduce this dependence. The European operator Eutelsat is currently developing Iris2, its own constellation of secure telecommunications satellites.