Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join
Russia’s effort to deploy "Rassvet," its sovereign alternative to SpaceX’s Starlink, is encountering major technical failures. Orbital tracking reveals that all 32 satellites launched by Bureau 1440 in 2026 have failed to reach operational altitude, leaving spacecraft decaying in low-Earth orbit. Discover how propulsion breakdowns, Roscosmos budget cuts, and Ukrainian strikes on rocket manufacturing infrastructure leave front-line Russian forces struggling with severed battlefield communications.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia's Rassvet Constellation Fails to Reach Altitude
01:49 - 32 Satellites Launched in 2026 Fail to Escape Low-Earth Orbit
02:49 - Atmospheric Drag and Orbit Insertion Failures
04:49 - Starlink Shutdown Forces Russian Army Back to the "Stone Age"
05:55 - Russian Command Collapse Enables Ukrainian Counterattacks
08:03 - Deorbiting Satellites and High Failure Rates in Low-Earth Orbit
10:42 - Bureau 1440 and the Unrealistic 2027 Rassvet Timeline
13:04 - Decades of Space Program Neglect and Budget Cuts
14:32 - Civilian Tech Slashed to Fund War Effort and Mass Deficits
16:09 - Ukrainian Flamingo Missiles Strike Progress Rocket Plant in Samara
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/jGq2b04z
Russia’s effort to deploy "Rassvet," its sovereign alternative to SpaceX’s Starlink, is encountering major technical failures. Orbital tracking reveals that all 32 satellites launched by Bureau 1440 in 2026 have failed to reach operational altitude, leaving spacecraft decaying in low-Earth orbit. Discover how propulsion breakdowns, Roscosmos budget cuts, and Ukrainian strikes on rocket manufacturing infrastructure leave front-line Russian forces struggling with severed battlefield communications.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia's Rassvet Constellation Fails to Reach Altitude
01:49 - 32 Satellites Launched in 2026 Fail to Escape Low-Earth Orbit
02:49 - Atmospheric Drag and Orbit Insertion Failures
04:49 - Starlink Shutdown Forces Russian Army Back to the "Stone Age"
05:55 - Russian Command Collapse Enables Ukrainian Counterattacks
08:03 - Deorbiting Satellites and High Failure Rates in Low-Earth Orbit
10:42 - Bureau 1440 and the Unrealistic 2027 Rassvet Timeline
13:04 - Decades of Space Program Neglect and Budget Cuts
14:32 - Civilian Tech Slashed to Fund War Effort and Mass Deficits
16:09 - Ukrainian Flamingo Missiles Strike Progress Rocket Plant in Samara
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/jGq2b04z
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:01Russia has a dream. Granted, it was a dream born from a nightmare.
00:06After relying on SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation for much of the war,
00:10Russia was cut off and forced to go in a different direction.
00:13The dream became its own constellation,
00:16filled with satellites built and launched in Russia to give Putin's forces an edge.
00:21That space dream is now literally falling from the sky.
00:25The Rasvet satellite network is falling as satellites can't reach proper orbit
00:30or are flat out dropping back to Earth.
00:32Russia's hope of replacing Starlink is close to ruin
00:35and there doesn't seem to be much that the Kremlin can do to stop the backward momentum.
00:39The latest news about Russia's Rasvet satellites comes from the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW.
00:45It says that Russia launched 16 satellites in July,
00:49which are meant to be part of the Rasvet constellation that will serve as Russia's version of Starlink.
00:53Not a single one of those satellites has managed to reach its expected altitude of 870 kilometers,
01:00with most hovering around the halfway point between 300 and 400 kilometers.
01:05Zero out of 16 isn't a record that anybody wants outside of a who's-the-best-loser competition.
01:12But that's the score Russia hit in July.
01:15Russia is likely rushing to launch Rasvet satellites to compensate for the loss of Starlink connectivity over Ukraine,
01:20the ISW declares, which is only going to feed into the problem.
01:24Space launches aren't something to be rushed.
01:27Trying to do things too fast is likely one of the reasons why Russia is in its current position.
01:32What Russia seems to have on its hands here is a home-brew version of a much more expensive,
01:37better designed and far better handled satellite constellation.
01:41A copy, and not a good one, that is failing to get any of Russia's satellites to where they need
01:46to be.
01:46Oh, and July isn't unique.
01:48It's not as though Russia has had one bad month after a series of successes.
01:53Russia has conducted two launches of its Rasvet satellites this year,
01:57the July one we just covered, and a different one in March.
02:00The March launch also delivered 16 satellites into low-Earth orbit,
02:04and together these launches were meant to represent about a tenth of the satellites Russia needs to get Rasvet up
02:10and running,
02:10well enough to provide connectivity to civilians and the military.
02:13Would you like to guess how many of the March satellites are where they needed to be?
02:17If you answered zero, then well done.
02:20Russia has launched 32 satellites in 2026, and none of them have managed to escape low-Earth orbit yet.
02:27Some have ended up facing worse fates than simply languishing in space too, but we'll get to that.
02:33First, a question you might have on your mind.
02:35What's the problem really?
02:36It's a logical question to ask, because Russia has managed to get its satellites into space.
02:41You would think that it's now a case of those satellites engaging the plasma engines built into them to get
02:46the appropriate altitude.
02:47That was indeed the plan.
02:49Likely a cost-cutting measure, Russia used its Soyuz rockets to deposit its 2026 batches of Rasvet satellites
02:55much closer to Earth than the 800km plus target altitude,
03:00with the expectation being that the satellite engines would then take them the rest of the way.
03:04That hasn't happened.
03:05We can't say exactly why.
03:07Perhaps the engines ran out of fuel or were never powerful enough to move the satellites to where they needed
03:12to be in the first place.
03:13But what we can say is that the positions that most of the satellites have taken in low-Earth orbit
03:18are a problem.
03:19There are direct physical consequences involved.
03:22The longer a satellite stays at lower altitude, the more it's subjected to the atmospheric drag,
03:27which requires the burning of fuel to counter.
03:29When fuel is burned while the satellite is stuck, the operational lifespan of the satellite decreases.
03:35Even though satellites that Russia has managed to get into the 400-500km region face this problem of faster degradation,
03:41as they are not able to maintain position.
03:44They are still working to get there in the first place, long after the work was supposed to be done.
03:49United24 Media has more information about the fates of the 16 July satellites.
03:54It says that nine have been recorded maneuvering a few extra kilometers, but not to the extent needed.
03:59Even the best of the nine is still over 400km away from its target altitude.
04:04Two others appear to have dropped below 300km, suggesting that they are on a descent.
04:09That's the opposite of what they're supposed to be doing.
04:12Russia's space stream is quickly turning into a disaster.
04:15Putin won't really care what this means for the average Russian.
04:18He thinks it's easier to control people when they're not connected to the internet.
04:21So Rasvet failing could prove to be a positive domestically, at least in Putin's mind.
04:26But for the Russian military, the entire point of these launches was to replace Starlink.
04:31If the Rasvet satellites are failing, Russia is falling behind in the race for a replacement.
04:36And Russia doesn't want to fall further behind.
04:39Its military has been feeling the pain of the Starlink shutdown all year.
04:43In early February, SpaceX finally made the move that Ukraine had been calling for.
04:47The organization shut down the illicit Starlink terminals that Russia had been using for communications
04:52and to support its drone attacks against Ukraine.
04:55The effect was practically immediate.
04:57A February 8 United 24 media report said that Russia's command and control capabilities across
05:03several parts of the front have been dramatically weakened, leading to unwanted shifts in tactical
05:08behavior.
05:09Russia was forced to deploy small assault groups supported by drones, which were easy pickings
05:13for Ukraine's own drone-laden defenses.
05:16Russian soldiers started talking about feeling like they'd been reduced to cavemen, relying on
05:21old radio, pen and paper to communicate.
05:23In a single night, we utterly descended into the Stone Age, one soldier complained in a rambling
05:28video.
05:29The Kremlin didn't help matters at all by announcing a crackdown on the Telegram social media service
05:34at around the same time.
05:36As if losing Starlink wasn't enough, it was starting to feel like Putin actively wanted
05:40his soldiers to be at a disadvantage.
05:42All because he fears people using Telegram to communicate messages that aren't Kremlin approved.
05:47Russia hasn't been able to get out from under the Stone Age ever since.
05:51Chaos soon created opportunities for Ukraine.
05:55Russia's communications collapses set the stage for a spring and summer, when Ukraine
05:59made targeted counterattacks, leading to large amounts of territory being reclaimed.
06:04By August 12, Ukraine had liberated 745 square kilometers of territory in the Oleksandrovka
06:11direction, with other pockets of liberation as well.
06:13All of this led to a Russian spring and summer offensive that didn't go to plan, and it can
06:19all be traced back to the loss of Starlink.
06:21Russia has been trying to replace Starlink ever since.
06:24It has yet to find an adequate replacement or workaround.
06:28Razvet is helping a little.
06:29In April, United24 media reported that Razvet has started to provide intermittent battlefield
06:34connectivity over Ukraine.
06:36But while this is concerning, it was also nothing to shout home about.
06:40Intermittent seems generous.
06:42Patchy to the point of near-uselessness is more accurate.
06:45Russian forces were getting temporary communication windows lasting between 15 and 20 minutes as
06:50Russia's satellites passed overhead.
06:52That was enough to establish some data links and enable limited military communications, but
06:58certainly not a fix, and nothing has gotten better for Russia since April.
07:02If anything, things are getting worse, as the March satellites will struggle to make it to their desired altitude.
07:07We are not saying that Razvet isn't a problem.
07:10If Russia can get it working in the way it is intended to work, Ukraine will clearly have a problem
07:14on its hands.
07:15Euronews delivers that very warning, noting that though Razvet has failed so far, it is still a threat.
07:21If Russia is able to get it up and running, even partially and non-patchily, it will have support for
07:27artillery and drone strikes in some parts of the frontline, as well as the ability to keep frontline forces connected
07:32to command and control in the rear.
07:34Still, it's not looking good, is it Putin?
07:37And the longer the delays, the worse it gets for Russia's forces.
07:40However, we're only just scratching the surface right now.
07:43There are other failings in the Razvet network that we haven't covered yet.
07:47And there's the problem that underpins all of this, which is that what we're seeing from one of the world's
07:51former great space powers is a fall from grace fueled by the Ukraine war and its impact on the Russian
07:56space program.
07:57We'll come back to Razvet, but before we dig deeper, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.
08:02There's a lot more where this comes from, so make sure you're subscribed and have notifications enabled if you're getting
08:07value from our channel.
08:09There's more about the March group of 16 satellites that you need to know.
08:13According to TechRadar, that launch was even less successful than it appeared on the surface.
08:17There is a satellite catalogued as NORAD 68363, which never managed to even raise its orbit after separating from its
08:25rocket.
08:26That satellite started to plummet, eventually re-entering the Earth's atmosphere on June 6th.
08:32It's basically gone now, lost forever to Russia's satellite constellation, likely soon to be joined by the two satellites from
08:38the July launch that appear to be on a downward trajectory.
08:41Neither of those satellites, numbered 17 and 23 by Russia, appears to have conducted any sort of maneuver that would
08:48see it climb higher since being launched.
08:50So, Russia has a 100% failure rate for getting its 32 satellites into the required orbit, and it seems
08:57to have a 10% failure rate for those satellites even working at all.
09:01Now, there's a caveat here. These are space launches.
09:05Technical anomalies are far from unusual in space launches, especially when dealing with high numbers of satellites.
09:10Ars Technica points out that about 5% of SpaceX's initial batch of Starlink satellites failed straight after launch, and
09:18more failures were recorded afterward.
09:20The 60 prototypes SpaceX sent eventually ended up with a failure rate of 13%.
09:24The next 420 were tweaked based on the knowledge learned from those issues, leading to the failure rate dropping to
09:30around 3%.
09:31And now, SpaceX's Starlink version 2 satellites have a failure rate of 0.01%.
09:37The European Geosciences Union also points out that a batch of 49 Starlink satellites released into orbit on February 3,
09:452022, 38 were eventually lost, with 32 of them never being tracked by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
09:53This makes it seem like nothing is out of the ordinary for Russia with its failed Razvet launches.
09:58But that's the exact point. Nothing is out of the ordinary.
10:01Failure is to be expected in a project like this.
10:03The idea is always to try, fail, improve, try again, and so on until you get it right.
10:08But what Russia is doing is trying to find as fast a solution to its Starlink problem as possible,
10:13without realizing that it's going to take a lot more time to set up than it anticipates.
10:18Putin can't simply point at the sky and say, put satellites there, and expect it to happen.
10:23That's not how it works.
10:25The best of these satellite constellations the world has to offer went through a ton of trial and error before
10:30they reached that pinnacle.
10:32Russia is trying to get there in a fraction of the time with as little cost as possible.
10:36Of course, its Starlink replacement dream is failing.
10:39And that brings us to what is supposed to be happening with Razvet, from the Russian perspective, and why these
10:44failures are happening so widely.
10:46On the face of it, Razvet is a massive project, seemingly with the budget to match.
10:50Russia has reportedly allocated about $1.28 billion to the project,
10:55all of which has been delivered to an organization called Bureau 1440,
10:59which claims that it's aiming to get 250 satellites operational by 2027,
11:04with the goal being a total of 900 by 2035.
11:08Already we're starting to see problems.
11:10It's September 2026, and Russia has launched 32 of the 250 satellites it intends to have in orbit by 2027,
11:18and none of them have reached their required altitudes.
11:21Getting almost 220 more satellites into orbit in the next 16 months or so seems ambitious, if we're being kind,
11:28and outright ludicrous, if we're being realistic.
11:31And that budget isn't all it's cracked up to be.
11:34According to an October 2019 Business Insider report,
11:37Morgan Stanley estimated the total cost of getting Starlink to where it is today at around $60 billion.
11:43And that assumed each Falcon 9 cost $50 million, and each satellite was about $1 million.
11:50Granted, Starlink is much larger than what Russia has planned for Razvet,
11:53but it's also worth noting that this estimate doesn't cover all of the research and development that went into Starlink.
11:59Russia also has to consider what it takes to get these satellites into orbit.
12:04United24 media reports that Russia will require at least 18 Soyuz 2.1b rocket launches to get the intended satellite
12:11group in the air,
12:12and that it currently manages between 6 and 8 of these launches annually.
12:17Assuming this baseline, it's going to take Russia around three years just to carry out the launches needed to get
12:22Razvet online,
12:23and that assumes each launch goes to plan and nothing goes wrong with any of the satellites.
12:28We can already see plenty going wrong with the satellites as we speak.
12:31As for the Soyuz launches, well, Ukraine has a little something to say about those.
12:36We'll get to that in a minute.
12:38For all of Russia's attempts at planning, there's no denying that it's starting to look like a slapdash effort.
12:42The Kremlin thinks it can throw money at the Razvet problem and expect it to be solved.
12:47That's just not how it works.
12:48And we don't just mean that in terms of the trial and error aspect of getting Razvet satellites to do
12:53what they're supposed to do in the first place.
12:55What Russia is really dealing with here is a series of deep-seated issues with its space program
12:59that is coagulating into a constellation of satellites that can't fly high enough.
13:04Let's talk funding.
13:05Sure, Russia has committed over $1 billion to its attempt at copying Starlink.
13:10But that cash is band-aid on the gaping wound that has been slashed into Russia's space program and left
13:15to fester for years.
13:17On April 10th, the scientific director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Space Research Institute, Lev Zelenyi, spoke at the
13:24Russian Space Forum.
13:25He admitted that Russia basically had no space projects of note lined up, barring the creation of a new Russian
13:31orbital station,
13:32and that the country had fallen far behind its rivals in the space race.
13:36Of course, there should be Russian-manned lunar cosmonautics, but we must find some difficult, non-standard solutions to go
13:42from lagging behind to overtaking, Zelenyi said.
13:45The numbers bear this out.
13:47United24 Media reports that Roscosmos carried out 17 orbital launches in 2025, which was the same number as New Zealand.
13:55The US conducted 181 of these types of launches, whereas China carried out 91.
14:01Russia's current launch level is at its lowest since 1961, which was the year that the Soviet Union sent Yuri
14:07Gagarin into space for his first flight.
14:09What all of this means is that Russia is trying to get Razvet off the ground, literally,
14:13at a time when the scientists responsible for making it happen have less experience and understanding of what they are
14:18trying to do
14:19than at any point since the very early days of the space race.
14:23Russia has deprioritized space for decades.
14:25Now it's paying the price as it struggles to get tech and infrastructure in place to launch satellites into orbit.
14:32Taking a broader look at Russia's tech landscape,
14:34the Kyiv Post reported in July that Russia has cut funding to eight of its technological leadership programs,
14:40so it can save $2.6 billion, likely to fund the war effort.
14:45The only one of those programs to receive the promised budget, and a little extra on top, was Russia's drone
14:50development initiative.
14:51As for the most significant cuts, they affected the space technology program.
14:55It lost out on $129 million.
14:58So when Russia says it's committing $1.3 billion or so to Razvet,
15:02what it really means is that it's expecting that money to pay for decades of space program neglect
15:07in a country that is falling behind the major space players and is not on par with relative minnows like
15:12New Zealand.
15:12Or to put it another way, Russia is running out of money because of Putin's Ukraine war,
15:17and its entire space program, including Razvet, is feeling it.
15:21Defense News reports that the Kremlin has been forced to cut non-military spending by 35%
15:27and federal staffing by 15% as it struggles to deal with a budget deficit of $65.3 billion.
15:34SpaceX may have spent something like that to get Starlink working,
15:37so what hope does Razvet have when Russia is over $60 billion in debt?
15:41And then there's Ukraine.
15:43The Kremlin couldn't have honestly thought that Ukraine would just stand by and watch
15:47as Russia tried to get its Starlink replacement operational.
15:50Ukraine now has drones that can easily fly thousands of kilometers into Russia,
15:54and it's not like Russia has many places where it's building and launching the Soyuz that carry its satellites.
15:59There are Razvet-related stationary targets inside Russia that are basically sitting ducks for Ukraine,
16:05and it's no surprise to anybody that Ukraine has started striking.
16:09Today there are new significant results from our deep strikes.
16:12In Russia's Samara region, one of the key enterprises within Roscosmos, the Progress Center,
16:17which was involved, among other things, in electronic production, was hit.
16:21Flamingo missiles were used, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on August 15th.
16:26Samara is where most of Russia's rockets are made, especially those being tasked with getting Razvet satellites into space.
16:33Both the Soyuz 2 and newer Soyuz 5 are built at the Progress facility Ukraine hit.
16:38It's unclear how much lasting damage has been done to Russia's Soyuz manufacturing in these strikes,
16:43but that's not really the point.
16:44Ukraine knows what it needs to hit, and it's proven that it can strike that target.
16:48The Progress plant can't be lifted up and transported across Russia.
16:52It's the sitting duck we spoke about.
16:54Russia doesn't have a problem with failing satellites.
16:56It has a problem at Progress.
16:58A pink missile-shaped problem that has already paid a visit to that site,
17:01and you can bet there will be more to follow.
17:04Razvet is going to be operational by 2027, Russia says.
17:08Somehow we don't see that happening.
17:10Not a single satellite is where it needs to be yet,
17:12as Russia's Starlink copy is falling out of the sky.
17:15Thank you, as always, for watching.