Russia Faces Space Setback In Rapid Deployment Of Starlink Analogue ISW

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Ukrinform reports, citing the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), that none of the 16 Rassvet satellites from the second batch launched on July 19 had reached the expected altitude of 550 kilometers above Earth as of August 31, according to satellite tracking data from N2YO.

Many of these satellites were at altitudes of between 300 and 400 kilometers, and at least two satellites were heading toward Earth's atmosphere.

These altitudes are significantly below the planned operational altitude of 870 kilometers for the Rassvet satellites.

The report notes that satellites operating at lower altitudes have shorter service lives because of increased atmospheric drag from the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere and greater fuel consumption compared with satellites operating at higher altitudes.

Overall, only 12 of the 16 Rassvet satellites launched on March 24 had reached the expected altitude of 550 kilometers as of July 31. They remained at that altitude as of August 31.

These 12 satellites provided Russian forces with two daily communication windows with ground terminals over Ukraine, each lasting up to 1.5 hours.

See also: Flamingo strike on Russia:“Flash” Talks About Rassvet satellites and the rocket carrier that put them into orbit

As previously reported by Ukrinform, the Ukrainian authorities officially appealed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, asking it to exclude Ukrainian territory from the declared service areas of all coverage beams of Russia's military Rassvet satellite constellation across all frequency bands.

Photo via Serhii Flash/Facebook

MENAFN01092026000193011044ID1111605452