Indo-Russian GLONASS

Plzz do contribute news articles and others that u guys may have got wit respect to the joint-development of GLONASS navigation system. Tks in advance

This has been posted by someone else, don rem whom, so maybe he can puit the link for this.
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India, Russia to jointly launch 18 navigation satellites

02.12 / 11:32 |

Moscow, December 2. KAZINFORM. Taking their strategic partnership to space, India and Russia are set to enter into an agreement to jointly launch 18 navigation satellites to restore, develop and commercialise the ex-Soviet global navigation system GLONASS, a top Russian space official said, Kazinform writes citing PTI.

The Indo-Russian GLONASS global navigation system is an alternative to the Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System.

It will have the accuracy of 1 metre resolution and would have civilian as well as military applications, Chief of Russian Federal Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) Gen Anatoly N Perminov here said ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s India visit on December 3-5.

“Given the level of mutual trust and confidence between the two nations, India will be Russia’s only foreign partner in GLONASS, and an agreement is ready for signing during President Putin’s visit,” Gen Perminov said.

Earlier, Russian media had reported China’s willingness to finance GLONASS.

“The GLONASS project is a very important agreement, a breakthrough in bilateral space cooperation. Russia has incomplete system as instead of 24 satellites on orbit, we now have only 11, while India has no such system,” Gen Perminov said.

According to him, the project involves launching of Russian satellites from Indian launch pads onboard Indian rockets and vice-versa, setting up of ground control systems in both countries and its global marketing.

Gen Perminov, who until recently was Chief of the Russian Space and Strategic Missile Forces, said Indo-Russian military application of space would be governed by separate agreements within the military-technical cooperation, guided by the MTCR – the non-proliferation regime of missile technology.

According to defence experts in Moscow, the GLONASS system would end the dependency on the Pentagon-controlled GPS, which was virtually not available to other users or was giving inaccurate input during the US-led Nato war on Yugoslavia in 1999 and recent US-led strikes on Iraq.

Leaving behind the sour chapter of cryogenic deal partially scuttled by Boris Yeltsin’s Russia in 1993 under the US pressure, Moscow is looking forward to closest space cooperation with India.

Gen Perminov said modified cryogenic deal (engines without know-how transfer) is being implemented very successfully by India.

“The Indian partners have gone much ahead of Russia in the use of cryogenic technology and we are going to use their experience of using booster stage working on liquid hydrogen and oxygen in our new generation Angara SLV”, he said.

Russia is willing to closely cooperate in India’s manned space flight programme and if invited, in Lunar mission, he said.

Perminov said that as the member of International Space Station (ISS) consortium Russia has proposed to other partners including the US, EU and Japan to include India in the ISS mission as a major space power. “The response has been very positive and the issue would be discussed in January by ISS consortium.”