What does GLONASS mean to us?

On the morning of December 13, a letter from the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Alexander Neradko appeared in the press . The message, addressed to the government, was interpreted as an admission of the ineffectiveness of GLONASS, the Russian navigation system. A denial soon followed from officials of the Federal Air Transport Agency. But it turned out like in that joke: the spoons were found, but the sediment remained.

Soviet strategy: the history of GLONASS

“GLONASS is a subject of geopolitical influence,” says Mikhail Fadeev, an independent expert on the mobile technology market. The project was created back in Soviet times. The first satellite was launched into orbit back in 1982. In the 90s, due to lack of funding, the system was frozen and the equipment failed. At the beginning of the 2000s, they decided to revive the project. By 2011, the GLONASS satellites were completely restored. “This gives us the right to feel to a certain extent independent. The project is strategically important, because GLONASS services can be used by both civilian consumers and the military. As far as I know, GLONASS is being introduced into the Russian armed forces,” Alexey Kuznetsov told us , head of the press center of Roscosmos.

Dark times of GLONASS

The black streak for GLONASS began a long time ago. Back in December 2010, three satellites disappeared, which, as it later turned out, fell into the Pacific Ocean one and a half thousand kilometers from Honolulu. The loss of navigation satellites did not affect the development of the project. But, as you know, trouble does not come alone. In November 2012, Russian Space Systems found itself at the center of a serious corruption scandal: 6.5 billion, intended for the development of the GLONASS system, almost like those three satellites, disappeared into the bowels of Roscosmos. General designer Yuri Urlichich was immediately fired. The investigation into the theft is still ongoing, as regularly reported by Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev.

GLONASS was again remembered with an unkind word after the publication in the Izvestia newspaper of a letter from the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Alexander Neradko. Just a few hours after the uproar arose in the press, the press center of the Federal Air Transport Agency hastened to issue a refutation. The representative of the press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Sergei Izvolsky, in a conversation with PublicPost, emphasized that there is no letter that would talk about the ineffectiveness of GLONASS. Indeed, the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Neradko “writes that there are some technical problems that are now being successfully resolved.” But, despite the evil rumors, “the system will be implemented.”

At the same time, if domestic GLONASS is implemented, it most often works together with American GPS. A natural question arises: why do we need GLONASS at all?

American threat

GLONASS is one of the most expensive modern Russian projects. From 2012 to 2020, 320 billion rubles from the country’s budget were allocated for the development of the project. Among other things, this is also an important image project for the country. According to Mikhail Fadeev, the political component of the project is extremely large: “In the modern economy, satellite navigation is like a power supply system, like the Internet. Imagine that the entire power supply system is controlled by one button, which is located in Washington. The button is pressed, the whole country is left without electricity. The collapse will begin. GLONASS is in no way inferior to GPS, from a political point of view it’s just duplication.” As an example of a potential threat from the United States, he cites the episode of the war in South Ossetia in 2008, when “the Americans pushed the buttons, the civilian GPS signal was turned off, and the entire North Caucasus was left without navigation.”

Technology for export

GLONASS is also an export project. “In the world, not only do we need GLONASS, there are a huge number of countries that are also afraid of falling into this technological dependence on the States,” says Fadeev.

The European Galileo project, in his opinion, will take another 10 years to develop. “Europeans don’t need this, it’s really very expensive - tens of billions of dollars,” the expert emphasizes. Europe does not need this, in his opinion, also because “Europe is the same as America, they will always be friends.” But Russia should be wary: the threat is always relevant. It is also relevant for countries such as Iran, India, Brazil, and Russia may well export its technology abroad. “Attempts have been made to export GLONASS, but all this is done under the auspices of the state and is quite bad,” states Fadeev.

Hardware cleaning

“The fact that there are many things that are wrong with GLONASS was clear a long time ago. There was no full implementation of GLONASS in the transport management system. In many cases, GLONASS was installed formally. Now, unexpectedly, such a vector has come from above - we will clean up everyone involved in the implementation of GLONASS to government agencies. People will now begin to get involved in this matter and report that we have also discovered inappropriate use. Another mass hysteria has begun,” says the expert. However, he immediately adds: “The hysteria will subside, the next number of culprits will be identified, and everything will go as it was.”