Russia plans to launch a direct competitor to the US GPS satellite navigation system next year using military technology developed in the Cold War era, project leaders said on Monday. Drivers, hill walkers, sailors and army commanders around the world navigate using satellite technology developed by the US military.
Soon they will be able to switch to a Soviet-designed rival - GLONASS. "We are planning to deliver all sorts of devices already available on GPS," said Alexander Gurko, the chairman of M2M Telematics which manufacturers satellite navigation equipment. GPS stands for Global Positioning System. "From next year we will start producing a consumer product from GLONASS," Gurko said.
He was speaking at a press briefing alongside Yuri Nosenko, the deputy head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, and other GLONASS project leaders. Russia will spend 10 billion roubles ($385 million) this year on developing GLONASS and firing more satellites into orbit but will also be looking for private partners, Nosenko said.
The Soviet Union started work on developing GLONASS, which stands for Global Navigation Satellite System, in the mid-1970s to give its army exact bearings around the world.
But the collapse of the Russian economy in the late 1990s drained funds away from GLONASS and the satellite system frayed. Now though, it has become a favoured project of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose seven years in power have been marked by resurgent Russian national pride alongside burgeoning oil revenues.
Since the US military turned on the GPS system for the consumer market in 1993, it has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. "Consumers don't care whether its GPS, GLONASS or Galileo, they just want a signal," said Yuri Urchich, head of the Russian institute of space equipment engineering.
Galileo is the European Union's satellite navigation system which it says will start beaming co-ordinates to customers by 2011. GLONASS presently covers Russia and some of the surrounding countries but after the launch of more satellites this year it will spread its reach until, by 2009, the world will be fully covered by its 24 Russian satellites, the panel said.
They said the GLONASS system would mainly be used alongside a GPS to provide a backup and extra security in case of interferences such as deliberate jamming. India, which buys military equipment from Russia, has already signed a deal to jointly develop the GLONASS system.
"Of course there are problems," Roskosmos's Nosenko said of developing GLONASS. "Some of them have a certain history, some of them are new, but they are all being discussed candidly."
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