GENEVA — Russia has submitted a formal satellite network filing to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for a proposed constellation designated Rassvet-4, according to a report published Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, by aerospace analyst Chris Forrester.
The previously unannounced regulatory filing details an expanded broadband network engineered by commercial developer Bureau 1440, intended to serve as a domestic sovereign alternative to commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink.
Preceding Rassvet-3 Deployments and Orbital Anomalies
The emergence of the Rassvet-4 filing follows operational setbacks encountered during Russia’s deployment campaign earlier this year. Bureau 1440 launched 32 Rassvet-3 satellites across two dedicated Soyuz rocket missions from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, lofting 16-satellite clusters on March 23 and July 19.
The early orbital campaign suffered hardware degradation in orbit. Two of the deployed Rassvet-3 satellites experienced uncontrolled altitude loss and disintegrated during atmospheric reentry, while the remaining 30 spacecraft have stalled in lower orbital planes and have not yet reached their intended 800-kilometer operational altitude. Aerospace observers indicate that the newly lodged Rassvet-4 baseline is structured as an upgraded iteration engineered to resolve propulsion anomalies and orbital-raising limitations identified during the initial deployment flights.
Constellation Architecture and Multi-Beam Specifications
According to technical documentation lodged with the ITU, the proposed Rassvet-4 constellation features an expanded orbital architecture designed for high-density spatial coverage:
- Orbital Geometry: The network specifies 374 satellites distributed evenly across 17 orbital planes, with 22 spacecraft per plane operating at a circular altitude of 800 kilometers.
- Payload Transmission: Each satellite bus integrates a multi-beam communications payload capable of projecting 12 discrete transmission beams, providing reconfigurable regional coverage.
Operating at the 800-kilometer altitude regime allows the proposed fleet to maintain low-latency data links while expanding single-spacecraft ground visibility across Russian and Eurasian territories.
Regulatory Filing and Future Deployment Roadmap
Filing advance publication materials with the ITU represents a required first step to secure non-geostationary orbit frequency registrations and coordination priorities before placing operational hardware into orbit. While Bureau 1440 and Russian space authorities have not officially announced Rassvet-4 publicly or scheduled initial launches, the regulatory filing establishes the technical blueprint for the country’s next-phase sovereign broadband network.
