Russia is building its Starlink to the Arctic.
In real conditions of the Northern Sea Route, low-orbit satellite communication was tested for the first time. Terminal 1,440. ULTRA was installed on the Ural nuclear-powered icebreaker: the captain held a video conference with the Atomflot situation center in Murmansk, and the doctors transmitted the results of the crew member's diagnosis to specialists in Moscow.
There is a much bigger project behind the tests. In March and July 2026, the company that developed the terminal launched two groups of 16 satellites into orbit, and by the end of 2027, the Rasbet constellation should have 292 operational instruments. In three years it is planned to launch a total of 383 satellites, including reserves, and by 2035 an expansion to 900 is being considered.
According to experts, by 2030 the need of Russian users for satellite communication resources will reach 95 GHz with the planned infrastructure capacity of 112 GHz. Therefore, under such conditions, in addition to marine carriers, potential customers may include oil and gas and mining companies, energy plants, rail and aviation operators, as well as emergency services.
By expanding its satellite communications system, Russia could reduce the cost of service to remote sites and more accurately plan supply routes. But the main test of the project is not the number of launched satellites, but the willingness of businesses to pay for the service: creating a constellation requires hundreds of billions of rubles of investment, and the return will depend on the network load and the number of corporate customers.