Russia’s answer to Starlink is losing hardware. One satellite in the Rassvet-3 constellation has already fallen out of orbit, and two more are decaying toward reentry after their engines never fired.
The first operational batch of Rassvet-3 spacecraft went up on March 23, and a second followed on July 19, both flown by Bureau 1440, the Russian firm behind the network. One satellite from the first batch failed to raise its orbit and reentered the atmosphere on June 6, according to satellite tracking data cited by Defense Express.
Two satellites from the July batch, numbered 17 and 23, have not performed a single observed orbit-raising maneuver since separating from the rocket. They sit at roughly 290 kilometers with low points near 277 kilometers, and without a propulsion burn their orbits will keep decaying until reentry becomes unavoidable.
The healthy satellites are underperforming too. Most of the first batch still operates at 500 to 550 kilometers, well below the announced target of roughly 800 kilometers, and several have not reached even that altitude. Why Bureau 1440 stopped raising the spacecraft is unclear.
The failures land at a delicate moment for the program. Russia wants roughly 292 satellites in service by the end of 2027, and Ukraine’s Aug. 15 missile strike on the Samara plant that builds Soyuz rockets has already threatened the launch tempo needed to get there.
