Russia Faces US Dominance in Domestic Navigation Services Market – Paper
Text of report by Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 6 April
[Report by Viktor Myasnikov: "GLONASS Can Hardly Be Seen"; satellite navigation requires a constellation of 28-30 spacecraft - taken from html version of source provided by ISP]
At a session of the State Council presidium the president expressed the hope that first deputy prime minister Sergey Ivanov would succeed in launching the Global Navigation Satellite System [GLONASS] before the end of 2007. Ivanov has promised that by the end of the year the orbital grouping will number 18 spacecraft and will provide coverage for the entire territory of Russia. How realistic are these promises?
The satellite is inaccessible
According to reports from Roskosmos [Russian Federal Space Agency], since midday 3 April a further five satellites have been added to the operational satellites of the GLONASS navigation system, bringing their number to 12. The spacecraft had been launched at an earlier date but were not commissioned until last Tuesday morning. As a result, satellite navigation information is now available to 66 per cent of Russia’s territory. A further six craft will be put into orbit by the end of the year and coverage will be increased to 100 per cent. However, it is not enough to simply launch the craft into space. They also have to be made operational. For example, three Uragan-M satellites were launched on 25 December 2005 and one of them is still “being commissioned.” Others were restored to operational status 3 April but have subsequently -since the end of March -been temporarily categorized as temporarily “out of action”.
Twelve out of the 19 spacecraft in the GLONASS orbital grouping 12 are currently operational. One further craft is being prepared for commissioning in December, while another three – all operational for between 45 and 65 months – have been scrapped (‘withdrawn from the system’). Three are undergoing maintenance, although they have been operational for the same length of time. It is remarkable that just three days ago just one satellite was at the stage of “withdrawal from the system”. Our Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent approached Viktor Kramarenko, a leading associate of the Federal Space Agency [Roskosmos] Central Scientific Machine-Building Research Institute [TsNIImash] who deals with the problems of GLONASS. “As I understand the situation”, said the expert, “they want to keep non-functioning satellites in orbits so that, at the end of the year, they can declare that the system is fully functioning -with all 18 satellites. According to a statement from Roskosmos chief Anatoliy Perminov, this is exactly the number of satellites that are required to cover the entire territory of Russia. But this figure is misleading”.
Viktor Kramarenko explained that Russia is not a plain. The satellite above the horizon is not visible from many areas and, consequently, positioning is not possible. With 18 satellites GLONASS will only be accessible to planes and ships on the open sea; for the majority of other users it will be inaccessible for two hours or more per day. That is why the United States currently maintains 29 GPS navigation satellites in orbit -all of them operational -and has plans to increase this number to 48. Our spacecraft are constantly being withdrawn for maintenance and their operational life is 3-4 times shorter than that of the American ones.
“We have to stop talking about 18 satellites once and for all”, said the leading TsNIImash specialist. “We cannot set limits in such an important matter -the country’s future depends upon it to a large extent. If we do, once we have reached this target the finance ministry will simply cease funding the project, believing it to be completed. But this would be extremely dangerous and quite wrong. We must not forget that GLONASS was created as a military security system. We must develop and maintain it, without relying on the American GPS. I asked programmers whether or not it is possible to limit GPS access on the territory of Russia. Apparently, it is easy to do this. If our country were to take some kind of actions that the White House decided to call ‘gas blackmail”, the territory of our country could be closed off to satellite positioning. “And we will be unable to object in any way”, Viktor Kramarenko said in conclusion.
Right now the “longest serving” GLONASS spacecraft has been operating for 56-and-a-half months. Those that have “tilled the orbital field” for more than 60 months have already gone into retirement. The majority of satellites that have been in operation for more than 40 months have been temporarily “withdrawn from service for maintenance.” It is not difficult to work out from this that one quarter of the orbital constellation requires replacement every year. What is more, the grouping must always have two to three spacecraft in reserve. The lengthy commissioning period is a further problem -there have been instances where craft have not actually started operating within the group until eight months after launch.
American satellites have a life of more than 170 months and a commissioning period of one to one-and-a-half months. They require no maintenance at all. The system is reliable, tried and tested, and thus has no fear of competition.
GPS rules the world
The satellite positioning system can be used virtually everywhere: on all types of transport, to track cargo, in cartography and construction, in mobile communications and power engineering, for monitoring avalanche dangers and for search-and- rescue services, in housing and municipal services and to track the migration of wild animals. The economy cannot continue to develop without it.
That is why the president has demanded that the GLONASS system should be only be available to economic subjects and not to ordinary citizens. He noted that only then would the system be economically advantageous and recoup its costs.
According to information from the United States Department of Trade, 5 per cent of GPS receivers are used to solve applied problems in aviation, 2 per cent in marine transport and 2 per cent in the armed forces. The remaining 90 per cent are used for positioning and management of land transport, private automobile transport, production applications, and geodesics, and also have a wide range of applications in daily life. They are even used to track the movements of children and pets. Every year the United States Department of Defence brings billions of dollars into the state treasury.
At the present time the navigation services in Russia market belongs to the American GPS. According to transport minister Igor Levitin, only 1,200 out of 5,000 Russian aircraft are equipped with navigation hardware; at the same time, 92 per cent of helicopters and planes have a GPS system but only 8 per cent have a GLONASS system.
So far the RF Ministry of Defence has only taken the first step to meet civil demand -it has removed the prohibition on high resolution electronic cards and the 30-meter restriction on the accuracy of satellite positioning on Russian territory. It is true that the purchase of one of these cards is fraught with problems but ,on the other hand, foreign market leaders do a lively trade in high resolution cards and space photos.
The Russian Institute of Radio Navigation and Time [RIRV] in St Petersburg manufactures 20,000 GLONASS receivers per year at its experimental plant. However, its specialists estimate that Russia has a potential receiver market of 20m, and that 700,000 of these are required within the framework of various state programmes. Yet only one quarter of the necessary quantity can be produced in Russia.
It is now possible to purchase GLONASS receivers in Russia at a price of between 1,000 and 3,000 dollars. With mass production, many specialists are predicting that the price could be cut to 200-300 dollars. This is the price at which GPS receivers currently sell on the world market, but they are produced in the millions. So, according to information from the Taiwanese Industrial Economics & Knowledge Centre (a research institute), the volume of GPS sales reached 101.3m devices in 2005. The world market in navigation equipment is now valued at 15-30bn dollars per year and is exhibiting annual growth of 25-30 per cent.
The absence of a modern element base is the biggest production problem. That is why -as the New York Times wrote in sarcastic fashion -the Russian dual-system (GPS/GLONASS) receiver is “a comparatively clumsy box, similar to a portable radio from the time of the Korean War. It weighs about one pound and sells for 1,000 dollars. What is more, the display must be purchased separately.”
Even on the domestic market, Russia is scarcely in a position to put pressure on GPS if it works alone. Consequently, during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India, he agreements were signed that will give India access to GLONASS navigation systems for peaceful purposes. This is a dynamically developing country with a population of 1 billion, and even without Russia it is able to cover the costs of a satellite grouping.
Navigation equipment manufacturers all over the world are very loyal to GLONASS because, after all, it does represent additional sales opportunities. The Taiwanese firm Falcon Aerospace Corporation is a major producer of navigation receivers, and already offers a whole range of portable GPS/GLONASS devices for different types of navigation, specifically developed for the Russian consumer. There are also plenty of companies offering dual system receivers on the American market. GPS/GLONASS electronic modules have been in widespread production since 1996, when both satellite navigation systems were recognized as components of the Worldwide Radionavigation System and acknowledged as compulsory for maritime shipping and other means of transport. The New York Times quotes Dzhavala Ashdzhai, president of Javad Navigation Systems, which specializes in the manufacture of dual-system receivers: ‘Your needs are met by 90 per cent if you have a GPS, your needs are met by 90 per cent”, he noted, ” while the missing 10 per cent guarantee the success of the Russian system”.
There is now talk of installing a navigation module in mobile telephones. Prototypes already exist that show GPS coordinates. If GLONASS is also added and mass production gets underway -bearing in mind that mobile phone manufacturers record sales running into the millions -GLONASS will become profitable.”
Our firms will not become profitable though. In no time at all the Chinese will flood our country with satellite positioning devices.
The GLONASS space grouping has been entrusted to Sergey Ivanov, and the Space Troops and Roskomos are also working on it. At the same time, no one has specific responsibility for GLONASS performance or for its surface components. A Federal Targeted Programme on GLONASS was adopted in 2001. This programme included a host of statements of intent and a list of 170 uncoordinated research and design projects, some of which were duplicated by various departments. This resulted in the usual dissipation of funds and material and human resources. At the same time, no-one paid any attention whatsoever to the development of technologies for commercial application, and to this day no single design exists for the development of a surface component.
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