Russia files ITU plan for 374-satellite Rassvet-4 broadband constellation

Russia has asked the International Telecommunications Union to register a 374-satellite broadband network named Rassvet-4, a filing made without any corresponding public announcement in Russia itself.

The numbers in the filing are precise. The proposed constellation would place 374 satellites at 800 km altitude, arranged in 17 orbital planes holding 22 spacecraft each, with every satellite equipped to operate 12 transmission beams. ITU filings of this kind are the standard regulatory route by which nations secure spectrum rights and orbital positions for planned satellite systems; the filing does not by itself confirm a funded or built program, but it reserves the pattern Russia would need for a full-scale rival to SpaceX's Starlink.

Rassvet is Russia's domestic answer to Starlink. Its spacecraft are built by Bureau 1440, a Russian manufacturer, and batches have flown to orbit on Soyuz rockets launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

What does the filing change for the program?

In practical terms, it signals that Russia is already designing around the shortcomings of the current generation. The filing follows a difficult first year of operations for the previous batch of spacecraft.

Russia launched 32 Rassvet-3 satellites earlier in the year. Two of them have since fallen out of orbit and burned up on re-entry. The remaining 30 have still not reached their intended 800 km operating altitude, according to observers tracking the constellation. The network, in other words, has yet to place a single Rassvet-3 satellite into its designed slot and hold it there.

Observers suggest that Rassvet-4 is an improved version of Rassvet-3, built specifically to fix the problems that have dogged the current satellites — the orbital decay losses and the failure to complete the climb to operational altitude.

A launch cadence built on Soyuz from Plesetsk

The deployment record so far shows a program working at modest scale. Batches have deployed via Soyuz rockets from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, including a 16-satellite Rassvet-3 batch launched on March 23 this year, followed by another batch on July 19.

Even if both 2026 launches had worked flawlessly, the combined spacecraft would represent a small fraction of the 374 satellites now sought through the ITU. The gap between the two figures frames the commercial reality: Russia has a functioning production line at Bureau 1440 and a proven launch path, but a long way to travel before Rassvet resembles a mass-market broadband constellation rather than a technology demonstrator.

The technical detail in the filing also carries weight. Twelve transmission beams per satellite implies a design intended for high-capacity regional coverage rather than narrow connectivity tests, and the 17-plane architecture mirrors the meshed orbital shells used by operational broadband systems worldwide. A filing of this shape, at this scale, is what a committed program looks like on paper.

Commercial reality against regulatory ambition

Vendor and state narratives around Rassvet pitch it as a sovereign alternative to Starlink. The record so far supports only part of that claim. Russia has built satellites domestically, launched them on domestic rockets from a domestic cosmodrome, and has now staked out spectrum and orbital rights for a system ten times larger than anything it has flown.

What the record does not yet show is the harder proof: satellites holding 800 km altitude, beams carrying commercial traffic, and a loss rate low enough to sustain a 374-spacecraft network. Two of 32 spacecraft lost in the first year, plus 30 still climbing, is the baseline the next generation must improve on.

The ITU filing has no attached launch date. Its significance is timing: Russia has moved to lock in the orbital and spectrum plan for Rassvet-4 before Rassvet-3 has proven itself, and before Moscow has said a word about the new system in public. The next concrete signal to watch is a Bureau 1440 announcement, or the first improved satellite on a Soyuz from Plesetsk.