Two Hours a Day: What Rassvet Really Provides Over Ukraine
By mid-2026, Bureau 1440's Rassvet low-orbit constellation had graduated from the experimental stage. Of the 16 production satellites launched on March 23, some had already ascended from intermediate orbit to operational altitudes. According to estimates by Ukrainian satellite communications specialists, cited by VO, At least two communication windows are now formed over the territory of Ukraine per day, each lasting about an hourIt's too early to call this a "Russian Starlink." The connection is session-based, and the real question is what can and can't be accomplished in two hours.
Scheduled communication
Operator drone, working through ground radio communication, is accustomed to simple logic: either there is communication, or it is suppressed by means EWThe Rassvet satellite channel introduces a third state: connection is available at certain times and not at others. Quality has nothing to do with it; the planning itself changes.
VO has written about "Dawn" itself more than once: We analyzed the first experimental devices, test results, and the batch launch of 16 production satellites.There's no point in repeating these technical details. Another important shift is that the devices ceased being purely test vehicles and began providing stable communication windows over specific theaters of military operations.
Low orbit—an altitude of several hundred kilometers—is where a satellite doesn't hover over a single point like a geostationary satellite, but instead orbits the Earth in about an hour and a half. This explains the nature of the window. While the constellation is small, there are either no satellites over Ukraine at any given time, or only one or two, and even those aren't always high enough above the horizon for reliable communication. The satellites pass over the region several times a day, but communication is only established during those passes when the constellation is high. There are currently two such passes. This totals about two hours of high-quality channel time out of twenty-four.
Starlink has dozens of satellites visible over the same area at the same time, maintaining contact around the clock. It's not that the individual Russian satellite is inferior in performance. It's just that Drone It hangs on the channel for the entire mission, and now it has to be cut to fit the schedule. This is a fundamentally different operation of the control loop.
What fits in the window
The adversary was the first to publicly understand the value of satellite communications for drones. When reports emerged of Russian drone strikes on rear airspace, Ukrainian specialist Sergei Beskrestnov explained the mechanics: such drones fly low to the ground, evading detection and electronic warfare, because communication with the operator is maintained via satellite, not a ground-based radio station. A ground-based network can be jammed in a specific area, but a satellite channel can't be so easily shut down.
The Russian side also has such capabilities. The military uses satellite stations to control the drones, and low-orbit vehicles are even better suited for this task, with lower signal latency. However, two approximately one-hour windows don't allow for continuous remote piloting. During this time, they perform other tasks:
- upload accumulated data: UAV video, reconnaissance results, unit reports;
- load back updated tasks, routes and target coordinates;
- synchronize battle maps between the front and rear headquarters.
This suggests a model that's currently working, which could be called "sliding control." The drone operates autonomously most of the time: it navigates, recognizes, and selects its route itself, without constant communication with the operator. Upon entering the window, a reconciliation session begins: the rear receives the image the drone has accumulated and returns clarifications: explore a new area. Defense, remove or confirm the target. Then the drone goes back into autonomous flight until the next window.
The window sets the rhythm: autonomous flight, a short correction session, then back to autonomous flight. How closely this rhythm will translate into actual operations is impossible to judge from open sources: there are no published combat reports of Rassvet's use, and domestic sources explicitly refer to the current missions as testing. But the direction is clear, and it logically follows from the general operation of satellite communications in the current conflict.
Predictability works both ways
The window has a property that makes it convenient: it's predictable. The commander knows in advance what hours the channel will be wide open and prepares reports, requests, and command packets for that moment. But the schedule itself works against its own.
The orbits are open. Knowing when a constellation of satellites passes over a region, an adversary can focus electronic warfare operations precisely during these hours, without spreading their resources around the clock. High-speed satellite systems operate in high-frequency bands that are susceptible to interference, and jamming can be optimized for them. A window from a clear corridor turns into a zone where communications are intermittently intermittent.
The ground segment is also vulnerable. Orbital satellites are useless without control stations and user terminals in the troop forces. Terminals can be captured along with damaged equipment and studied, and gateway stations can be disabled by a strike. This logic has already been formulated at the Military District: the orbit cannot be turned off by pressing a button, but the impact cycle that relies on it can be slowed down by working on the links that depend on the connection.
There's also an obvious limitation. Rassvet's effectiveness only occurs where troops have terminals, and there aren't many of them yet. The system is young: according to industry reviews, not all the first-launch satellites are operating normally, and the operator hasn't published full failure statistics. This is the technical cost of the early stages. And the contrast with the enemy's performance is significant. Bureau 1440 claims network access "anywhere on Earth." In practice, over a single theater, that's only two hours a day compared to the 24/7 coverage of Starlink, which has thousands of satellites in orbit. The gap here isn't just a percentage, but several times, if not an order of magnitude.
Where is the group heading?
The current two windows are just the starting point. They plan to expand the constellation further. Launch plans for the VO were reviewed separately: After the first 16 devices, there is a queue for a batch of 156 satellites, and then the rate of almost three hundred devices per year is reachedThe target constellation consists of hundreds of devices, distributed across orbits so that several satellites are always located above any point.
The mechanics of the transition are clear. The more drones there are, the more frequent the accesses become, and the more they overlap. At some point, the pauses between windows collapse, and the session mode gives way to continuous coverage. Then, the main limitation of today disappears: operations no longer need to be scheduled. Drones can be controlled and data updated continuously, and autonomous flight will no longer be a necessary measure, but a backup—in case the channel is ultimately overwhelmed.
This changes the adversary's mission. Pinpointing two short resource windows is feasible. Maintaining electronic warfare against continuous coverage is a completely different expense. And the denser the constellation, the less significant the loss of an individual satellite is: the network ceases to be dependent on each satellite. This will only work, however, under one condition: if the launch program continues at the stated pace, and the industry provides the required number of satellites and terminals. For now, this is a plan, not a fact.
The Russian group also has something that goes beyond the number of devices and channel bandwidth. Russian troops' use of Starlink was limited by a private company's decision: access to someone else's network can be restricted or closed at any time for reasons unrelated to the situation at the front. Rassvet is under national jurisdiction, and by definition, it has no such kill switch. For a system being integrated into the military chain of command, this is a basic requirement: a channel that can be shut down by a third party cannot be installed there. And then, two hours a day suddenly override someone else's 24-hour channel. Because no one can shut down their two hours from the outside, while someone else's 24 hours can be shut down at any time by a decision unrelated to the war.
Сonclusion
Today, Rassvet operates in sessions over Ukraine: two predictable windows per day, with silence in between. The predictability of the window allows friendly forces to plan operations while simultaneously suggesting to the enemy where to direct electronic warfare. The balance will be determined by the deployment rate of the group and the number of terminals in the forces, not the orbit itself.
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