The global navigation satellite system (GLONASS) began to be developed back in the USSR by order of the country's defense ministry. The satellites of this system have been launched into orbit since October 12, 1982. The system was first put into operation on September 24, 1993, 12 satellites were deployed in orbit. The staffing of 24 satellites was reached by 1995, when there were 25 spacecraft (SC) in orbit. Subsequently, due to the difficult economic situation in the country, the number of the grouping deployed in space steadily decreased, reaching a minimum of 6 spacecraft in 2001. After that, the program received a rebirth. The completion of the deployment of the GLONASS satellite constellation to its full strength was completed again in 2010.
GLONASS is rightfully recognized as one of the most important Russian achievements in space. Today it is one of two operating global positioning systems. Only the United States and Russia have such systems. China's Beidou system is currently operating as a regional positioning system. The system is based on 24 satellites constantly operating in orbit (excluding reserve spacecraft). The GLONASS system is intended for operational navigation and time support of an unlimited number of land, air and sea-based users. At the same time, access to the civil signals of the system is provided to both Russian and foreign consumers free of charge, without any restrictions.
"Currently, there are 28 satellites in orbit: 24 operating satellites of the GLONASS system, 2 operating in test mode and 2 more spare satellites in the orbital reserve," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a recent government meeting. Emphasizing that Russia is currently working on the creation of the second generation GLONASS-K satellite. According to Rogozin, at the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems enterprise located in Krasnoyarsk, work is currently underway to calibrate the satellite signal, so that by 2020, as planned earlier, the resolution of the GLONASS system will reach no more than 60 cm. Currently, this figure is 2, 8 m.
The main problem that has yet to be solved is the import substitution of the element base used to create navigation satellites. This will improve the security of the entire system. At the same time, today Russia is unable to abandon foreign components for the production of GLONASS navigation satellites. This is acknowledged by the main designer of the spacecraft - the enterprise "Russian Space Systems" (RKS). Experts warn that if the situation with the sanctions develops in a negative way, this could lead to the "completion of the work of the constellation" of these satellites. On Thursday, September 18, Grigory Stupak, who holds the post of Deputy General Director of RKS, noted that import substitution, of course, will be associated with the correction of design documentation. At the same time, in some cases, Russia is not ready to abandon all foreign-made products.
According to him, within several years all channels of access to good components may be closed, and the hope that someone else will start supplying them is very small. According to Grigory Stupak, the main payload for domestic satellites GLONASS-M and promising GLONASS-K contains the element base of both Russian and foreign production. At the same time, in the GLONASS-M satellites, the filling (onboard equipment) is predominantly Russian. Currently, the space constellation includes only one GLONASS-K vehicle, which is undergoing a series of flight tests. The satellite was launched into orbit in February 2011.
At the same time, earlier Igor Komarov, who holds the post of head of the URCS, said that the Russian Federation, under the current Western sanctions, would place orders for the production of microelectronics for rocket and space technology in China, South Korea, and other Asian states. At the same time, information appeared that our country was negotiating with Beijing. Negotiations are underway with the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) and the China Electronic Technology Corporation (CETC) on the joint development of technologies that will combine the capabilities of the Russian GLONASS system and the Chinese Beidou.
Component problems
Back in May 2014, the head of the RCS Gennady Raikunov said that the United States had not issued a license to Russia to supply our country with components for assembling and launching satellites, which are currently in the assembly stage. RF did not receive electronic component bases and integrated circuits. Commenting on this information, the head of the Moscow Space Club, Ivan Moiseev, emphasized that the decision to use foreign components in satellites for the GLONASS system was quite natural, since "they are cheaper and better." “But as soon as such permission was received, the Russian Federation went too far, as a result the program is completely dependent on foreign-made components. The share of foreign components has become very large,”Ivan Moiseev noted in his interview to the Vzglyad newspaper.
According to Moiseyev, in the current situation, we can only hope that the sanctions imposed by the West will enter into force not with the speed with which they were announced. At the same time, according to him, for several years all channels for good foreign components may be blocked, and the hopes that they will be supplied by someone else are small. Those components that China produces, it most often produces under licenses, which are compiled very competently. They are detailed contracts that take into account all possible overlays. The United States can simply point out those clauses in the issued licenses that prohibit the transfer of manufactured components to other states under certain conditions. In the event that the situation with sanctions develops in a negative way, the states that produce the necessary equipment under license can choose what is more profitable for them - continuing cooperation with the United States or selling products in the Russian Federation.
The transition to self-sufficiency is a very time-consuming process. It is also important to take into account the Russian bureaucracy, which alone can take several years. It will also take time to conduct comprehensive product tests, change existing regulations. But it is necessary to move in this direction, since Russia has a very high dependence on other states in this matter, the expert believes.
Moreover, if the situation goes according to a negative scenario, then, according to Moiseyev, this could lead to "the completion of the work of the satellite constellation." The satellites will not begin to pour in right now, this will happen as their resource is depleted, in the future in about 5 years. At the same time, Russia has a certain stock of components, that is, this process will not happen immediately, but strategically such a problem and challenge for Russian industry and science exists.
According to Ivan Moiseyev, work in this direction must begin with a check of what kind of components Russia really needs, and which we can do without. “We need a high-quality inventory, at present we have a large redundancy in terms of importing companies. Some purchases were not economically justified regardless of the prevailing foreign policy situation, it is necessary to figure out how the components get to Russia, who pays for them here,”says Moiseev.
At the same time, at the end of August 2014, Alexander Muravyov, who holds the post of chief designer of navigation equipment for the GLONASS system consumers, said that foreign microelectronics in the project could be replaced by Russian ones as early as 2016, and the domestic industry is already ready to import substitution of Western microelectronic technologies. According to him, in Russia there are prerequisites for overcoming this dependence. If we start implementing the import substitution program today, the result can be obtained by 2016. Muravyov noted that the council of chief designers of consumer navigation equipment and leading manufacturers of domestic microelectronics are ready for this.
At the same time, Ivan Moiseev in an interview with Vzglyad called Muravyov's opinion "optimistic", but admitted that the existing requirements for ground equipment, which the chief designer had in mind, were much lower. There is also another control system, while by tradition, only the most reliable and stable equipment is installed on the spacecraft. According to the classification used in the United States, it is space or military. “It is very difficult to produce the necessary chip from scratch, and making it resistant to cosmic radiation is even more difficult,” the Russian expert noted.
GLONASS development
In the near future, the Russian satellite system GLONASS should be replenished with new spacecraft, as well as new ground measuring stations, which will be located outside our country. The prospects for the development of the system were discussed a lot at the past IV International School on Satellite Navigation. All participants in this scientific event emphasized the importance of the development of the navigation system, which is an important element of the Russian security system, especially in the light of the development of such systems abroad: Galileo - EU, BeiDou - Compass - PRC, IRNSS - India and QZSS - Japan.
The architecture of the Russian global positioning system assumes that 24 satellites should be in orbit constantly at an equal distance from each other, moving in 3 orbital planes (8 vehicles in each plane) at an altitude of about 20 thousand kilometers above the planet's surface. Such a rigid structure, according to Grigory Stupak, together with the use of ground stations, makes it possible to predict the location of each spacecraft for any period of time, and also ensures the global principle of this system, the accuracy and efficiency of information transfer.
At present, the Russian constellation consists of the GLONASS-M spacecraft, the service life of which does not exceed 7 years. In February 2011, the first GLONASS-K spacecraft was launched into space, which can operate in orbit for 10 years. According to Stupak, in 2014 it is planned to send another such satellite into space. In addition to the increased service life, the GLONASS-K vehicles have another advantage - they are produced on the basis of an unpressurized platform, which avoids many problems associated with a possible depressurization of the spacecraft. Also, such satellites emit a signal in the new L3 frequency range, in contrast to previous devices operating only in their “own” frequency ranges (L2 or L1).
According to Stupak, the GLONASS system currently consists of 19 ground-based measuring stations, 3 such stations are located outside the territory of Russia - in Brazil and Antarctica. Soon one more station will have to appear in Belarus, two stations in Kazakhstan, three stations in the PRC. At the same time, in return, China will build three of its stations on the territory of our country. In total, it is planned to deploy about 40-50 measuring stations abroad - in Africa, South America, Asia, and also, possibly, Alaska.
Today it is the GLONASS system that is the leader in accurate satellite navigation in high latitudes. In order to "fill" the existing gaps in the equatorial zone of the Earth, it is planned to increase the size of the satellite constellation up to 30 spacecraft (initially, this was not provided for by the system design). For this, it is necessary to increase the number of orbital planes along which Russian satellites will move. At the same time, maintaining the existing structure of GLONASS while increasing the number of spacecraft is not an easy task.
