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Russia is in the process of building a constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit for data connectivity, called RASSVET (Russian for 'dawn' or 'sunrise'): a kind of Russian Starlink. Understandibly, given the military use of Starlink-like constellations, this buildup is under scrutiny by western analysts. Some of which appear to be jumping the gun, as I will argue below.
Two batches of operational RASSVET have been launched so far: batch 1 of 16 objects on 23 March 2026; and batch 2 of 16 objects on 19 July 2026. They are designated with the RASSVET 3 name, to set them apart from the prototype tests RASSVET 1 (likely 3 satellites, part of a launch with many objects in 2023, launch 2023-091) and RASSVET 2 (also likely 3 satellites, probably 2024-092G, H and J which reached 777 km altitude).
On 2026 August 31, the Institute for the Study of War advances (ISW) published an online report claiming that the second batch of RASSVET's was 'failing' to reach orbital altitude.
Late August, the objects from this second batch were at altitudes of 300-400 km rather than the 510 km reached by the first batch.
In a wider claim, they also point out that the orbit raise of the first batch stopped at 550 km (actually: 510 km) rather than the 870 km published for the constellation in a TASS newsbulletin from 8 years ago. They take this to indicate a failure to reach the intended operational altitude.
This claim of 'failure' was quickly picked up by multiple news media, e.g. Ars Technica.
So, is RASSVET, and specifically the second batch failing? When we look at the actual data, I'd say that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of RASSVET's death have been highly exaggerated.
Below diagrams show the orbital evolution of RASSVET 3 batches 1 and 2 so far. Each colour represents a satellite in the batch, each dot is an orbit determination (plotted against time). The x-axis shows Mission Elapsed Time, the time, in days, since launch.
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| Click diagram to enlarge |
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| Click diagram to enlarge |
We can see that the RASSVET's from the first batch seem to have settled at 510 km orbital altitude. Three objects from that batch did not (yet) reach that altitude.
One, RASSVET 3-4 (2026-061D) appears to have failed and reentered into the atmosphere on 6 June 2026. The other two might still be in the process of orbital raising. It can be seen that for batch 1, the orbital raising was at different moments for different subgroups in this batch.
At first glance, these diagrams also seem to corroborate ISW's claims about the second batch: so far they did not reach more than 400 km in orbital altitude. ISW claims there is an "apparent failure of all 16 satellites from the second launch to reach their intended operational altitudes". ISW does seem to take the 510 km orbital altitude of batch one as some sort op intended altitude.
But the assessment of batch two compared to batch one in the ISW report is seriously flawed and not borne out by a closer look at the data. There is a reason I chose to express the X-axis in the diagrams as "Mission Elapsed Time": this aids direct comparison of the timeline of both launch batches.
Below is a combination of the diagrams for both batches, in which I have cut off the diagram's x-axis at 80 days. This makes both diagrams more directly comparable. The diagram for the second batch ends with the last available orbits from yesterday, 53 days after launch of this batch.
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| Click diagrams to enlarge |
It can be immediately seen that the orbital altitudes reached during the 53 days since launch are very similar for both batches: in both cases, the orbital altitudes reached after 50 days is between 300 and 400 km. If anything, batch 2 actually appears to raise their orbits a bit faster (!) than batch 1 did.
We can't even say that the lowest three objects from batch two, RASSVET 17, 23 and 26 currently at around 300 km altitude, necessarily 'failed'. In the first batch, some objects initially stayed at that altitude too during the initial 50 days, but were subsequently raised to higher altitudes.
I therefore see no indication that the RASSVET-3 batch 2 is failing to raise their orbits in comparison to batch 1, contra the ISW claim.
Back to the initial batch, RASSVET 3-1.Of the 16 objects launched, one clearly failed, and reentered. While unfortunate, we should note that with Starlink, frequently one or a few satellites of each launch batch also fail. This is just a given: on each n objects launched, some will fail.
Two RASSVET's from batch 1 might (or might not) still be in the process of orbit raising, and 13 of the initial 16 have settled at 510 km altitude. This is indeed not the 870 km orbital altitude TASS mentioned in 2018 (eight years ago). But is that relevant? It is very well possible that the initial goal for the orbital altitude was later adjused to a lower altitude (which means better latency) for operational reasons, just as Starlink did. Starlink's initial FCC filing from 2016 was for an orbital altitude of 1150 km, while the first operational launches targetted 550 km instead. They are now lowering their operational altitude to 480 km.
I therefore see no clear reason to conclude that the 510 km altitude where the RASSVET-3 batch 1 satellites settled, points to a 'failure' to reach operational altitude. As an operational altitude, 510 km is fine, it is somewhat lower but still in the same ballpark as the initial orbital altitude of Starlink. Assuming a typical lifespan of 5 years (similar to Starlink) and periodic orbit maintenance (like Starlink), it should be no problem. It should again be noted that Starlink is lowering the orbital altitude of its constellation, initially 550 km, to 480 km now, which is lower than the batch 1 RASSVET's.
So, in my view all this talk of RASSVET "failing" has no real truth to it and jumps the gun. It rather seems wishful thinking.
