Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has approved the addition of 67 billion rubles (US$2.62 billion) to the GLONASS program budget for the years 2008–11.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has approved the addition of 67 billion rubles (US$2.62 billion) to the GLONASS program budget for the years 2008–11.
The decision taken on September 12 ensures restoration of the Russian GNSS system by the end of 2009, according to a presentation to the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday (September 16), by Sergey Revnivykh, deputy director of the Russian Federal Space Agency’s Central Research Institute for Machine Building (TsNIIMASH) and head of the Information Analysis Center for Positioning, Navigation, and Time.
This brings the total expenditure from 2001–2011 to 120 billion rubles (US$4.69 billion) to rebuild a fully operational constellation with 24 modernized GLONASS (GLONASS-M) spacecraft. With three-satellite launches scheduled for September 25 and December 25 this year, the Russian space agency expects to have 18 operational GLONASS satellites on orbit by early 2009.
"There is the GLONASS system, and we are going to accelerate its evolution," Putin said in discussing the additional budget for the system. "We added 45 billion rubles to the funding of the space industry — this is for the sake of hi-tech advancement."
