GSLV launch vehicles will help restore satellite constellation in exchange for access to system by armed forces
The Indian and Russian governments have reached agreement to co-operate on the Glonass global navigation satellite system following a visit to New Delhi by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Under the deal, signed on 2 December, India will provide indigenously developed GSLV launch vehicles to help the Glonass constellation in return for access to the system for the country's armed forces. Access to the Glonass military frequency would allow India to carry out accurate strikes using precision-guided munitions.
The agreement opens the door to industrial co-operation between Indian and Russian space companies, says Victor Kosenko, Glonass project manager with Krasnoyarsk, Siberia-based Scientific Industrial Association of Applied Mechanics (NPO PM). The company develops and builds Glonass Uragan-series satellites and says it is interested in Indian technology that could improve the current production Glonass-M satellite and be used in the next-generation Glonass-K.
"India already makes satellites with 10-year in-orbit lifetimes, and we are primarily interested in that,"says Kosenko. NPO PM is "very interested" in joint development with India of the Glonass-K, including use of an Indian platform for carriage of Russian mission equipment,he adds.
India will also work on end-user receivers and customised software packages. Although over 20 CIS companies offer Glonass and Glonass/GPS receivers, few can produce devices that appeal to the global market. NPO PM hopes Indian software companies will be involved in development of customised software, including "differential" packages that can provide extremely accurate navigation by combining Glonass, GPS and digital maps that will be produced using Indian and Russian remote-sensing satellites.
With 24 satellites in orbit in 1995, the Glonass constellation suffered from the short three-year guaranteed lifetime of the second-series Uragan satellites. Only eight were operable by 20 August 2001, when Russia issued a decree aimed at restoring the constellation by 2012. If the next Proton replenishment flight, set for 25 December, is a success, in February 2005 Glonass will have 14 operable satellites.
Russia's plan is to increase the number to 18 in the following year, sufficient to restore the constellation's "global"status, and to 22 in 2010. India's launch vehicles will eliminate a major bottleneck, as there is a shortage of affordable Russian rockets. So far the Uragan satellites have flown on the heavyweight and expensive Proton, three at a time, while development of the cheaper medium-weight Soyuz-2, which can carry a pair of satellites, is running behind schedule.
VLADIMIR KARNOZOV / MOSCOW
Source: Flight International
