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Russia Successfully Tests Navigation Satellites Launched on Boxing Day

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 January 2005, 09:00 CST

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 5 January: Three spacecraft belonging to the motherland's global navigation satellite system (Glonass) launched before New Year have successfully passed tests in orbit.

As the Russian Space Troops' press service reported to ITAR-TASS today , "the navigation satellites have joined the orbital group of the Glonass system, the monitoring of which is carried out from the main centre for testing and controlling objects in space".

The group launch of the satellites into geostationary orbit was carried out on 26 December [2004] from the Baykonur cosmodrome [in Kazakhstan] using a Proton-K launch vehicle. Two Glonass satellites (capable of working for three years) and one Glonass-M satellite with extended functioning possibilities and ability to work for seven years went into the "space package", the agency was told. According to the source, there are now two Glonass-M satellites in the orbital group, which is made up of 14 functioning and two backup craft.

"In the next three years the group's numbers will be boosted with the addition of new-generation Glonass-M and Glonass-K satellites (work capability 10 years). Using such satellites will make it possible to provide navigation information to an unlimited number of customers at any point on Earth and will significantly increase the accuracy of establishing coordinates for an object to one metre," the press service pointed out.

"By 2007, within the framework of the federal targeted programme, it is planned to increase the orbital group of the Glonass system to a minimum level of 18 spacecraft," the agency's source said.

According to the experts, problems are pursuing Glonass not only in orbit. Even if the space group is increased to 24, land-based infrastructure still needs to be developed and perfected. It was noted in Roskosmos [Federal Space Agency] that, "in the next few years, defence enterprises' efforts will be aimed at creating land- based equipment and navigation receivers for private customers". The specialists believe that "such expenditure will pay for itself over several months while private customers will themselves pay to use the system".

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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