Putin Pumps It Up

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed off on a budget directive allocating $2.6 billion to further develop GLONASS.

In addition to 67 billion rubles, Putin said he planned to sign another directive that would set aside 45 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in further funding for the country’s space program. The news came at a working meeting between Putin and Sergei Ivanov, deputy prime minister, who is responsible for state policies relating to industry development, defense, nuclear, and space industries and transportation. Ivanov said that the majority of the $2.6 billion would go to adding new satellites to the GLONASS constellation.

The directives from Putin mark a considerable increase in GLONASS spending compared to recent years; the Russian federal budget allocated 9.9 billion rubles ($418.25 million) for GLONASS in 2007 and 4.7 billion rubles ($200 million) in 2006.

The Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) plans to increase the current number of GLONASS satellites from 16 to 30 by 2011. While GLONASS now has 16 satellites in orbit, one is in a decommissioning phase, while two others are undergoing maintenance, leaving 13 operationally healthy, according to Roscomos’ Analytical Information Center.

Launch Now. On September 25, three new GLONASS-M satellites (model pictured here) launched at 08:49:37 UTC. Activities on September 24 at the Baikonur launch pad were reported on the Roscomos website:

“Proton-M launcher / GLONASS-M satellites prelaunch processing continues at Baikonur in line with the program for so-called Launch Day 3. The launcher was erected on launch pad N81 on September 22. Yesterday simulation of the filling procedure was run. Today expert groups perform mating of the filling pipelines with the rocket pipelines and carry out their leak-checks. Propellant filling operation is to be done tomorrow.”

New Generation. In other GLONASS news, Information Satellite Systems-Reshetnev Co. has begun production of the modernized K-series of GLONASS satellites, with a first scheduled launch in 2010, the company reports.

GLONASS Update from CGSIC. GPS World’s Innovation editor Richard Langley provided these notes from the GLONASS presentation at the September 16 Civil Global Positioning System Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) meeting immediately preceding the ION GNSS conference in Savannah, Georgia:

"Sergey Revnivykh of the Russian Federation’s PNT Information Navigation Center reported that three GLONASS satellites are to be decommissioned by the end of the year. But six new GLONASS-M satellites are to be launched within the next three months (three on September 25 and three on December 25) so that there will be an 18-satellite operational constellation by December 2008 / January 2009. Additional GLONASS-M satellites will be launched to give a 22-satellite constellation by December 2009 and a full 24-satellite constellation by December 2010."

Revnivykh reported that flight testing of a GLONASS-K satellite, with improved capabilities, will take place beginning in 2010. GLONASS-K satellites will feature both rubidium and cesium clocks (GLONASS and GLONASS-M satellites use exclusively cesium clocks).

Further details:

• Russia is considering the use of Soyuz rockets for launches of
  single GLONASS-M satellites and multiple GLONASS-K satellites from 2011 onwards.
• They are studying the potential of collisions of dead satellites from different constellations (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and so on) as a result of the satellites drifting out of their assigned orbit bands over the next 100 years or so.
• The decision has been made to introduce CDMA on future GLONASS satellites. Although this decision has been made, the structure of these signals is still to be decided. However, the proposed structure will be finalized and made public in an ICD to be released next year. Likely, the first satellite with this capability will not be launched before 2015, with a full constellation with CDMA capability not in place before 2019. Legacy GLONASS signals will continue to be transmitted.
• Future plans include extending the GLONASS monitoring network outside Russia.

Industry, Individuals Welcome at ICG Meeting

The U.S. will host the third International Committee on GNSS (ICG) meeting December 8–12, 2008, in Pasadena. For the first time, commercial providers of GNSS equipment and services are being invited to exhibit and sponsor events at the meeting, which will take place at the Westin Pasadena Hotel.

Members of the GNSS community can attend, but must pre-register through cg_oc@jpl.nasa.gov by October 17. A schedule of conference activities and sessions is available.

The ICG emerged from third United Nations conference on the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space in July 1999, and was officially established at the UN’s December 14, 2006, meeting in Vienna, Austria. The ICG promotes the use of GNSS and its integration into infrastructures, particularly in developing countries, encouraging compatibility and interoperability among global and regional systems.

Members include GNSS providers (U.S., EU, Russia, China, India, Japan) who also make up the ICG Providers Forum, and other member states of the U.N. Besides encouraging compatibility and interoperability, the ICG Work Plan includes enhancement of GNSS services, outreach, and interaction with monitoring and reference station network organizations.

GLONASS Presents Irony at ION in Georgia

By Don Jewell
Military & Government editor

The second plenary speaker on September 16 at the ION GNSS Conference in Savannah, Georgia was a bit of a surprise. Dr. Yury Nosenko is the Deputy Director of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and yet he spoke to us in his native tongue, fortunately through an outstanding interpreter, because he also departed somewhat from his prepared remarks. But in all honesty it was his prepared remarks and the verbiage on his PowerPoint slides that gave me pause, or at least had me wondering if the Russians have any real sense of irony.

Here the deputy head of the Russian Federal Space Agency was speaking in the state of Georgia in the United States while his countrymen were invading the former Russian state of Georgia, and the heading of one of his first slides proclaimed, “Independence Leads to Global Stability.” It was all a bit much. It took all I had not to laugh, but of course it was not a laughing matter.

Indeed, I had barely managed to stop marveling at the audacity of Dr. Nosenko’s remarks about global stability when his next slide proclaimed that “a fully populated GLONASS constellation will help prevent ‘jamming’ or artificial interference,” as Dr. Nosenko referred to it in his presentation. This from the country that prolifically and unapologetically continues to build the most serious GPS jammers in the world today. Russia is currently building and selling the GPS jammers that put our troops in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deputy head of their space agency is in the United States touting GLONASS as a way to defeat jamming.

A good friend and colleague who recently retired from one of those three-letter agencies in the Washington, D.C., area put it in perspective for me when he commented on the Russian Space Agency announcement that it would spend another 67 billion rubles on the GLONASS program. It is purely speculation on my part, but could it be because the Russian forces in the former Russian Georgia were using the U.S. GPS constellation as a navigation tool during their military intervention, because the GLONASS constellation was just not currently up to the task? Who knows?

Still, it is good to know that with all their current oil wealth, the Russians are concentrating on finally completing the GLONASS constellation. If they can just get their satellites to consistently last longer than five years on orbit with a working payload, then they might indeed be able to populate the GLONASS constellation to the desired level of 24 operating satellites by 2010, which is the date Dr. Nosenko promised the GLONASS constellation would be fully populated.

If the Russian Federal Space Agency prediction comes to fruition, then possibly more international manufacturers will be willing to build stand-alone GLONASS and joint GPS/GLONASS receivers. As I have written many times, with GPS (and GLONASS), numbers and geometry matter. It would be great to have another 24 satellites on orbit that we could predictably rely on, even if the GLONASS satellites are not as historically accurate as the GPS satellites. I wish them luck while I continue to marvel at the irony and audacity of Dr. Nosenko’s presentation.

Galileo Contractors’ List Narrowed to Eleven

The European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have selected 11 applicants out of the 21 that applied to build or supply various aspects of Galileo under the commission’s procurement plan.

The Galileo procurement plan, unveiled in July, includes the following six work packages: system support, ground mission segment, ground control segment, space segment (satellites), launch services, and operations. The ESA is managing the procurement process in coordination with the EC, the official contracting authority.

Paul Verhoef, the EC’s head of unit for Galileo, said during the September 15–16 CGSIC meeting that preceded of the Institute of Navigation GNSS conference that Europe had completed the first phase of the procurement process, and would make an announcement by the end of the week.

Now that Galileo is publicly funded, World Trade Organization and other regulations require that the Galileo procurement process be open to non-European companies. While the 11 candidates read like a who’s who of the European aerospace industry, a consortium led by Lockheed Martin is in the running to build the ground control system for the European GNSS.

The 11 pre-selected candidates are:

• System Support: ThalesAlenia Space (IT); Logica (NL)
• Ground Mission System: Thales-AleniaSpace (FR); Logica (UK)
• Ground Control System: Astrium (UK); G-Nav grouping represented by Lockheed Martin IS&S (UK)
• Space segment: Astrium (DE); OHB System (DE)
• Launch Services: Arianespace (FR)
• Operations: Nav-up grouping represented by Inmarsat (UK); DLR (DE) and Telespazio (IT)