Russia’s Space Chief Vows To Deliver Starlink Rival at ‘Rapid Pace’

Monday saw a brief global outage of Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink impact tens of thousands of people, including Ukrainian military forces across the entire frontline. Despite such occasional hiccups Ukraine has long successfully relied on Starlink throughout the conflict, especially to run its fleet of attack drones.

Russia is working on its own domestic-made ‘answer’ to Ukraine’s frontline Starlink advantage, at a moment it is seeking to modernize its space program. A Russian aerospace company, known as Bureau 1440, is currently developing a low Earth orbit satellite system for global broadband data delivery.

“Several test vehicles in orbit have already been inspected and the production ones have been modified accordingly,” Dmitry Bakanov, the newly appointed 39-year-old head of Roscosmos, has said in an interview. “We are also moving at a rapid pace in this direction.”

Bakanov recently acknowledged in a state TV interview that the Russian space sector had fallen behind due to “inertia” and a lack of fresh talent, and now he’s seeking to attract attract a younger generation of engineers and scientists to revitalize the space program.

The reality is that SpaceX has rapidly outpaced former Russian dominance in satellite and rocket technology, and Russian officials have at times openly admitted this.

Previously this summer, Bakanov previewed: “The first launch is scheduled for the end of this year,” according to TASS, detailing that the mission would carry 16 satellites. “Just like how Starlink was deployed.”

Bureau 1440 expects over 900 satellites to eventually be launched by 2035, including 250 satellites connecting commercial services sometime by 2027.

An idea for a Starlink competitor was first unveiled and pushed by President Putin in 2018, called Sfera, but that project had to be abandoned amid sanctions on Roscosmos.

Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said on Sept. 17 that Russia will soon launch “Rassvet,” a Starlink-like satellite internet network using Bureau 1440’s low-Earth orbit satellites. pic.twitter.com/Z2DWAnj5UL

— Polymarket Intel (@PolymarketIntel) September 17, 2025

One industry-related report has noted that “By the end of 2024, Roscosmos had carried out only 17 space launches – two fewer than in 2023 and four fewer than in 2022. For comparison, the US carried out 145 launches, and China – 68.”