Russia’s head of space praises the “rapid” development of the Starlink Rival

With more than 6 million active users, Starlink de SpaceX has become the world’s leading provider of high -speed satellite. This importance has sparked a rivalry, and especially with other world powers, including Russia.

In a television interview on Wednesday, Russia’s chief Roscosmos Space Agency said that he was pushing all the steam before an alternative to Starlink, Reuters reported. Dmitry Bakanov said ROSCOSMOS had partnered with the 1440 office, a Russian aerospace company, to develop a low -land orbit satellite system for global delivery of wide -band data.

“Several orbit test vehicles have already been inspected and those of production have been modified accordingly,” said Bakanov. “We also move at a quick pace in this direction.”

Can Roscosmos make up for SpaceX?

Starlink operates the largest satellite constellation in the world: on August 1, there were 8,075 operational satellites Starlink in orbit on Low Land, according to the astronomer of Harvard University, Jonathan McDowell, who follows the megaconstellation of his website. It is more than half of all the satellites that would be in orbit around our planet.

The SpaceX network provides high speed broadband internet to a variety of consumers, including businesses and governments, perhaps more particularly in Ukraine. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, kyiv received more than 50,000 Starlink terminals to help it maintain military communications and drone operations, according to a Ukrainian official speaking in April of this year.

SpaceX built its constellation in six years, launching its Falcon 9 rockets hundreds of times during this period. As such, Elon Musk’s company is one step ahead of 1440 office, which launched its first experimental satellites Rassvet-1 in 2023, according to Space Training. These satellites are part of the “Dawn” project, the company’s challenger to Starlink.

Bureau 1440 developed its satellites in three years and, according to Bakanov, the company has erased some key validation obstacles.

When will Project Dawn be launched?

His first batch of satellites should be launched at the end of 2025, he said, according to Izvestia, a newspaper of the Russian daily. However, with thousands of starlinks already in orbit and more launch each week, Project Dawn should evolve at an unprecedented rate to catch up.

The motivation of Russia to contest the domination of SpaceX in low orbit is probably strategic. Having your own high -speed satellite constellation would strengthen its military communications and drone operations. Bakanov suggested that Project Dawn will allow Russia to control drones with greater precision, according to Izvestia.

But again, as Starlink has shown, building a satellite megaconstellation does not occur overnight, and office 1440 still has a long way to go. What is clear, however, is that Russia is committed to improving its communication capacity by satellite.