Russia Replaces Starlink With European-Built Satellites Originally Made by Airbus and Thales

Also misleading because it's buried in the article that Russia only has *unauthorized* access to Starlink, which has been drastically reduced now that Ukraine can give SpaceX a list of terminals they control. Makes it hard to see this as a "replacement" for Starlink, given they didn't have unfettered access to Starlink in the first place

Also that satellites were produced and supported by European companies despite sanctions.

They have had these satellites all along, so there must be a reason why they chose Starlink over these in the first place. The fact that this is suddenly news makes me wonder if the article is based on a Russian propaganda piece.

I thought you could geofence an area to deny service. So anywhere 100 kms outside of the line of contact should be banned.

Also the dishes for this kind of system are both moving (instead of solid state beamforming antennas like StarLink etc) and significantly larger and power hungry. So fine for a command center but not for some units to bring with them.

Ya. Weebs who shit on elon (rightfully so, he's a loser) dont realize how superior starlink is and all it enables

But it is freedom from being at the whim of another person or corporation or international law, which is kind of the point.

850x480 at 1 Mb/s would certainly be okay.

1 millibit per second is super slow, you couldn't use that for anything.

No need to be that complicated. Just need to hit the sat with a laser until you've disrupted its orbit

If crashing is desired, Boeing is an expert at that.

Moonraker ; )

>On March 4, 2026, at approximately 8:45 a.m. Moscow time, the geostationary satellite Express-AT1 (orbital position 56° East longitude) experienced a sudden failure — an instantaneous shutdown of all systems for unknown reasons. The operator, FSUE “Kosmicheskaya Svyaz” (GP KS / RSCC), reported an “abnormal situation.” All attempts to restore the satellite have failed. At present, no details or causes of the incident have been reported in the media. Therefore, the specifics of the malfunction and the current state of the satellite’s systems remain unknown. However, the very fact that the satellite has been officially declared lost confirms that Express-AT1 is completely out of service. It is also unknown whether the Russian side still has the capability to control the satellite’s orbit or whether it can move it into a graveyard orbit.

Especially up in geostationary orbit. That would be horrible to say the least.

Getting to geostationary orbit is incredibly hard and would destroy coverage over the entire continent (give or take) Not even the most stupid country should consider that a good idea

Have you read the article? Although the satellites were manufactured in Europe, they are operated by Russia. So it is a Russian system, the headline is highly misleading.

You should probably read before commenting

I think these are older satellites they bought years ago.

Solid argument here Edit. Have you ever written more than a sentence?

Unrelated, but not wrong.

It's Russian satellite companies (ekspress and yamal satellites) that happened to buy some kit from europe that they sent up themselves before the current war (2022) and most of the modern embargoes on selling communication equipment to Russia. It's also European kit in Russian satellites, it's not under the jurisdiction of Europe. It's like being mad at Toyota because they're using trucks they bought in 2011 for the war.

It’s not Europe’s satellites.