The Rassvet-3 satellite orbit failure afflicting Bureau 1440’s second launch batch has deepened doubts about Moscow’s ability to field a credible low Earth orbit broadband constellation, with all 16 satellites from the 19 July launch now sitting at altitudes far below their intended operational orbit and showing little prospect of climbing to where they need to be.
Bureau 1440, the company developing the Rassvet-3 constellation, had planned for the satellites to orbit at roughly 500 miles altitude. Publicly available US Space Force data shows the second batch instead occupying orbits between 190 and 250 miles as of the beginning of September. At those altitudes, atmospheric drag steadily degrades a satellite’s orbit, pulling it progressively lower until it re-enters the atmosphere. According to KeepTrack, the programme’s target is a 511-kilometre, 82.3-degree inclination orbit, a specification the second batch has not come close to meeting.
Journalist Anatoly Zak, who runs the website RussianSpaceWeb, was among the first to flag problems with the batch, identifying two Rassvet-3 satellites in early August that were already on a re-entry trajectory. Positional data indicates that many satellites in the second batch did attempt orbital manoeuvres to climb higher, but none appear to have succeeded in reaching operational altitude.
Rassvet-3 satellite orbit failure pushes programme success rate to 37.5%
The setback compounds the mixed results from Bureau 1440’s first launch. That batch, put into orbit on 23 March, saw 12 of 16 satellites reach and hold altitudes of roughly 340 miles, again below the original 500-mile target, suggesting the company may have revised its operational altitude downward. Taken together, only 12 of the 32 satellites launched across both operational batches have reached what appear to be long-term usable orbits, giving the programme a 37.5% success rate to date.
For context, SpaceX reported just 43 early mission failures or terminations among its first 1,383 production Starlink satellites, a failure rate of roughly 3%.
According to azmth’s Rassvet Tracker, Bureau 1440 had launched 38 satellites in total by 14 September 2026, six of them experimental. That figure is higher than the 32 accounted for by the two operational batches alone, reflecting the experimental satellites launched separately from the main constellation programme.
Analysts from the Institute for the Study of War wrote on Monday that “the apparent failure of all 16 satellites from the second launch to reach their intended operational altitudes suggests Russia may have been unprepared to accelerate constellation deployment at this pace and will likely face additional delays.”
A constellation programme with ambitions far exceeding its current capacity
The gap between Bureau 1440’s long-range plans and present realities is considerable. According to Ukrainska Pravda, Bureau 1440 plans to deploy around 730 satellites by 2030, expanding the constellation to more than 900 elements by 2035. The company has also said it is planning “dozens of launches and hundreds of satellites” in total. Against that backdrop, having 38 satellites in orbit (with only 12 confirmed at stable long-term altitudes) underscores how much ground remains to be covered.
The launch bottleneck is structural. The Rassvet-3 constellation relies on the Soyuz-2.1b rocket, which carries 16 satellites per mission. At that cadence, the programme could launch roughly 80 Rassvet-3 satellites per year, and that assumes no further orbital failures. Ukrainian estimates put the minimum constellation needed for a stable military communications network at between 200 and 250 operational satellites, meaning even a flawless run of launches would take years to reach that threshold.
SpaceX currently operates more than 11,000 Starlink satellites, a scale that underscores the structural disadvantage Russia faces in this domain. The pressure behind the Rassvet-3 programme is direct: SpaceX cut off satellite internet service to Russian forces on 1 February, and Rassvet-3 is intended to fill that gap for military communications and drone operations.
Ukraine has also been working to disrupt the programme at source. In mid-August, Ukrainian authorities said an FP-5 Flamingo long-range missile struck a space centre in western Russia that produces the Soyuz rocket.
Bureau 1440 has given 2027 as its target for the start of commercial broadband service, according to the azmth Rassvet Tracker, a timeline that will come under growing pressure if the second batch’s orbital problems cannot be corrected or the launch pace cannot be meaningfully increased.