Reliance Jio Targets a 2027 Test Launch for Its 1,600-Satellite LEO Network

Reliance Jio has put a date on its move into orbit: a test launch in September 2027 for the first satellites in what the company plans to grow into a 1,600-satellite low-Earth-orbit network, according to details reported this week.

The plan, in numbers

Jio's constellation is designed to operate at roughly 650 kilometres altitude, with each satellite offering throughput of 100-150 Gbps. At full build-out, around 30-32 satellites would sit over India at any given time, giving the network an aggregate capacity of up to 4.8 Tbps across the country. The rollout is staged rather than a single launch event: the September 2027 flight is explicitly a test mission to validate hardware, software and ground systems, with mass deployment not beginning until early 2028. Jio is targeting 400-450 satellites in orbit by 2030 and a completed constellation by 2035, with satellite-based connectivity for customers expected to go live in 2028.

Why a telecom operator is building satellites

Jio's move follows a now-familiar logic in global telecoms: low-Earth-orbit constellations can reach the rural and remote geographies that terrestrial towers cannot reach economically, and the operators who control that layer control a growing share of the connectivity market rather than ceding it to satellite-only entrants. India's terrestrial 4G and 5G rollout under Jio has already reached most of the country's population, which leaves LEO as the more useful growth lever for the remaining hard-to-serve geography, ships, and enterprise use cases needing guaranteed bandwidth outside city limits.

It also puts Jio in more direct competition with the satellite operators already circling India's market. Starlink has cleared much of its regulatory path to operate in India, Amazon's Leo (formerly Kuiper) is scaling globally, and Eutelsat OneWeb already has an Indian presence through a partnership with Bharti. A Jio-built and Jio-operated constellation would give the company control over its own satellite infrastructure rather than reselling capacity from one of those providers, protecting both its margins and its negotiating position as satellite broadband becomes a bigger part of how Indians get online.

The manufacturing question

What is not yet public is how much of the constellation Jio intends to build domestically versus source from established satellite manufacturers. A network of 1,600 satellites, even phased out to 2035, is a manufacturing challenge on a scale India's private space sector has not previously attempted; the country's most-funded space startups, such as Pixxel, are still building constellations in the dozens of satellites, not the thousands. If Jio builds a meaningful share of this constellation domestically, it would be a significant demand signal for India's satellite-manufacturing supply chain, from bus platforms to phased-array ground terminals. If it leans on established international manufacturers instead, the primary domestic benefit shifts toward jobs in ground infrastructure, spectrum coordination and customer-facing services rather than satellite production itself.

Reliance has not published a manufacturing or sourcing plan for the constellation alongside the timeline, and neither the Department of Telecommunications nor IN-SPACe has said how spectrum coordination for a constellation this size will be handled domestically.

What comes next

The next concrete milestone to watch is the September 2027 test launch itself, which will show whether Jio's in-house or partnered satellite bus and payload technology performs as designed before the company commits to mass production. Until then, the 2028 service date and 2035 full deployment remain targets rather than commitments, in a satellite industry where schedule slips of a year or more are the norm rather than the exception.

Sources

• Jio Targets September 2027 Test Launch For 1,600-Satellite LEO Network — Inc42
• Jio targets September 2027 test flight for its 1,600-satellite LEO constellation — Tele.net.in
• Jio Enters Space Sector With 1,600-Satellite Network at 650 Km Altitude — Asian Mirror