Kazakhstan's ministries name SES for an Air Astana jet, Starlink for trains

Kazakhstan's digital ministry said on 29 October that Air Astana's first satellite Wi-Fi jet flies under a project carried out in cooperation with SES, while the transport ministry has named Starlink as the system now running in passenger trains.

The ministry's release is the only official text reviewed here that names SES. It says the project with the international satellite provider covers an Airbus A321LR, and that the airline's own technicians do the installation. Promotion terms, dates and fleet plans are in our report on the flight; this piece looks at the structure behind it.

Aircraft and trains: SES in the air, Starlink on the rails

The release says the ministry worked with international satellite operators, authorised bodies and market participants, through negotiations, agreed operating terms and regulatory decisions. It prepared changes to legislation and to the requirements for non-geostationary satellite systems, with special conditions for air and water transport that removed regulatory barriers to connection. It also agreed with the operators that Kazakh law, security requirements included, would be followed. It does not say which operators, or whether SES is one of them.

On trains, the digital ministry's release says only that satellite communication already works on rail transport. The transport ministry is more specific. Its release of 9 September 2026 says the first pilots with the low-orbit OneWeb and Starlink systems ran in 2025 on five routes, including Astana to Almaty, and that as of 8 September Starlink internet was available in 59 trains on 31 routes, covering more than 770 carriages. It planned to equip 124 trains, or 1,235 carriages on 50 routes, by the end of September.

The government's summary of the digital minister's report to a 6 October session gives a later scale: internet in 1,500 carriages across 124 trains on 50 routes, with work continuing to connect seven aircraft and 50 tourist locations. That summary names no operator, so it does not say whether every one of those carriages uses Starlink.

Villages, schools and phones: Starlink and OneWeb

Starlink has the clearest official paper. A news item of 13 June 2025 on the site of the Otandastar Foundation, reporting the digital ministry's agreement and quoting the minister, describes an agreement with Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary, under which the company follows Kazakh law, terminals are bought, operated and registered under it, and public sales were expected from the third quarter of 2025. It names rural schools, health facilities, mobile units and infrastructure sites as users, and says that until then Starlink had served only schools in a pilot. The 6 October summary adds a second role: text messaging and a basic level of internet nationwide through Direct-to-Cell, with Beeline and Starlink Mobile, covered in our report on the launch.

Beyond the 2025 rail pilots, OneWeb appears in official texts mainly as a name. A government statement of 4 July 2025 lists OneWeb, Starlink, Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology and Amazon Kuiper as companies Kazakhstan is collaborating with and says 328 more remote settlements would be connected by the end of 2025, with investment above 38.6 billion tenge. It does not assign settlements to a system. The village and school counts for each system come from the minister's October reply to deputies as the press reported it, set out in our report on the commercial licences, not from an official text.

System	Use named in an official text	Left unstated
SES	One Air Astana A321LR (ministry, 29 October 2026)	Network, orbit, contract holder, licence
Starlink	Trains (transport ministry, September 2026); schools, health facilities, mobile units, infrastructure sites; phone service with Beeline (government, October 2026)	Licence terms, where traffic lands
OneWeb	Rail pilots in 2025 (transport ministry); named as a collaborator (government, July 2025)	Current use, contract holder
Trains	Starlink in 59 trains on 31 routes at 8 September (transport ministry); 1,500 carriages, 124 trains, 50 routes at 6 October (government)	The operator behind the October count

Orbits, licences and who contracts with whom

The release refers to requirements for non-geostationary systems but does not give the orbit of the SES service. SES's own 2021 release, on a memorandum with the Republican Center for Space Communications, a subsidiary of the ministry, describes its O3b mPOWER system as sitting in medium Earth orbit about 8,000 km up, and says the parties would explore service agreements and an in-country gateway. It is an agreement to explore, it predates the airline project, it does not mention aircraft, and nothing in the 2025 or 2026 texts ties that network to Air Astana. The transport ministry describes OneWeb and Starlink as low-orbit systems; the other official texts give no orbit.

The contract chain differs by system. Starlink's agreement is with the ministry itself. SES's 2021 memorandum was with a ministry subsidiary, while the 2026 project is described only as cooperation, so the release does not say whether the airline, the ministry or both hold the contract. For licensing, the minister said Starlink and OneWeb obtained commercial licences on 2 October, again as the press reported, and our explainer on Starlink's legal terms notes that the conditions are unpublished. Whether SES holds, or needs, a separate licence for aircraft is not stated.

Still open in the published record: the SES network and orbit for aircraft, the operator behind the October train count, the licence terms for all three, and whether the aviation rules sit inside the same regime as the consumer licences.