Russia's Rossvest Starlink Alternative Is Already Losing Satellites to Accidental Reentry

Russia's planned satellite constellation network, designed to offer an alternative to Starlink internet connectivity, is already falling out of orbit, making it harder to meet its deployment timeline. Recent Ukrainian strikes on Soyuz rocket manufacturing infrastructure have only made matters worse.

Russia has long planned an alternative to Starlink, but after SpaceX switched off Starlink access to Russians in Ukraine, its efforts have accelerated and become more pronounced. It launched the first Rassvet satellites in March and then some more in July, but few of them hit their planned orbit, and some are already falling back to Earth.

One of the first Rassvet satellites fell out of orbit entirely in June, and United24 reports two others are losing altitude. RussianSpaceWebreports that none of the second batch got even close to their planned 800-kilometer orbit, with all of them currently sitting under 330 kilometers at their apogee, with a perigee...

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