Russia launched its first 16 operational Rassvet broadband satellites on March 23, 2026, beginning a long climb toward a 900-satellite LEO constellation. Built by Bureau 1440 and funded by billions in government and private capital, Rassvet is a technological sovereignty project driven by a hard lesson from the war in Ukraine. When your military depends on someone else's satellites, they can turn them off.
Space Force scraps SDA transport layer, requests $1.6 billion for proliferated LEO SATCOM constellation. Roger Mason nominated to lead NRO.
SpaceX quietly built the world's largest 4G network without a single cell tower. Over 650 satellites now connect standard smartphones directly from orbit, and most people carrying compatible phones don't know the service exists.
The largest commercial antenna ever deployed in low Earth orbit belongs to a company most people have never heard of. AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 6 is either the future of cellular connectivity or the most ambitious overreach in telecom history - and it just finished unfolding.
SpaceX crossed 10,000 simultaneous active Starlink satellites in LEO on March 17, 2026, less than seven years after its first operational launch.
SpaceX launched 25 more Starlink satellites from Vandenberg SFB on March 8, 2026, pushing the active constellation toward 9,914 working spacecraft.
