By Dylan Malyasov,
Published by Defence Blog, 25 August 2026
Key Points
- Two satellites from Russia’s second Rassvet batch are decaying toward reentry after never performing orbit-raising maneuvers.
- None of the 16 satellites launched July 19 climbed above 360 km, roughly 200 km lower than the first group reached at a similar stage.
Two satellites from Russia’s second Rassvet launch batch are heading toward reentry after never performing orbit-raising maneuvers, according to tracking data reported by Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com. The pair had fallen below 300 km in altitude as of late August and appeared to be on a decay path, the report said.
It is the second time satellites from the Rassvet constellation have failed to reach a stable orbit. The Defence Blog reported in June that the first Rassvet satellite lost, designated Object 4, reentered the atmosphere on June 6 after never performing a single maneuver following its March 23 launch, the first confirmed casualty of the program.
The two newly affected satellites are part of a 16-spacecraft cluster launched July 19 from Plesetsk aboard a Soyuz-2-1b rocket, the same launch site that sent up another classified military satellite on August 24. The July batch was the second group of Rassvet-3 satellites built by Bureau 1440, a Russian company developing a low Earth orbit broadband constellation the Kremlin has promoted as a domestic counterpart to Starlink. Neither Roscosmos nor Russia’s Ministry of Defense has publicly acknowledged the July 19 launch.
The U.S. Space Force catalogued 17 objects, the 16 satellites plus the rocket’s upper stage, on July 24 in an orbit averaging 289 by 327 km with an inclination of 82.3 degrees, RussianSpaceWeb reported, citing Space Force tracking data. Nine of the 16 satellites began orbit-raising maneuvers between late July and early August, but their resulting altitudes ranged from 313 to 332 km, roughly 200 km lower than where the first Rassvet batch stood at a comparable point after its own March 23 launch.
By August 5, 11 satellites in the second group were climbing, according to the tracking data cited in the report. By the end of August, three of those had stopped climbing and begun a slow decay at altitudes between 310 and 330 km. None of the 16 satellites in the batch managed to climb above 360 km, the report said.
Bureau 1440 confirmed the July 19 launch’s success in a statement posted to Telegram the following day, saying the satellites had separated from the rocket and established contact with mission control.
“After completion of checks and the operational activation of sub-systems, the satellites will begin transfer to a target orbit for providing communications services,” the company said in the statement.
The company did not disclose a launch time or the satellites’ official designations in that statement.
Rassvet’s stated goal is to provide Russia with an independent satellite broadband network after Starlink terminals were effectively cut off from unauthorized use inside the country. Bureau 1440 has said it aims to expand the constellation to roughly 250 satellites by 2027, when it plans to begin commercial service, and to as many as 900 satellites by 2035, according to company figures. Militarnyi has reported that Russia plans to place 292 Rassvet satellites into orbit by the end of 2027.
Ukrainian officials and analysts have said the first Rassvet batch, launched in March, has already begun providing measurable coverage over Ukraine despite Object 4’s loss. Ukrainian satellite communications expert Volodymyr Stepanets told Militarnyi in early August that the first group provides at least two daily communications windows over Ukraine, each lasting more than an hour, based on his analysis of the satellites’ orbital tracks. Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian presidential adviser known by the call sign Flash, has said Russia would need at least 200 to 250 satellites in orbit to provide stable, continuous coverage.
Plesetsk, the launch site for both Rassvet batches, has drawn repeated Ukrainian drone activity in 2026. Roscosmos director general Dmitry Bakanov said Ukrainian forces attempted a drone attack on the site during preparations for the March 25 launch, and Ukrainian drones reached the surrounding Arkhangelsk region again on August 23, a day before Russia’s next classified satellite launch from the same complex.
The second batch’s orbital plane sits more than 100 degrees away from that of the March launch group, according to RussianSpaceWeb, based on differences in each group’s right ascension of the ascending node. No official update on the fate of the underperforming satellites has been issued by Roscosmos, the Russian military or Bureau 1440.
See: Original Article
