Talks on Placing GLONASS Stations in the U.S. Not Renewed

RIA Novosti is reporting that negotiations regarding the placement of a differential correction and monitoring GLONASS station in the United States have not yet been renewed. The news agency quotes remarks by Grigory Stupak, first deputy general designer of Russian space systems, during the Fourth International School on Satellite Navigation.

In all, 40-50 GLONASS stations are planned for placement around the world, Stupak said. “As for the United States, we now consider the option of placing a station in Alaska, but the lack of it does not significantly affect the performance of our system,” he said, adding that Russia has worked with the southern African region and South America on placement of GLONASS stations, with one station in Brazil already operational. “There also have Cuban colleagues to host GLONASS stations,” he said.

According to Stupak, taking into account developments in the world, it does not make sense to force the negotiation situation by placing a station in Alaska.

GLONASS Satellites Based Mainly on Russian Component Base
The prevailing share of the payload for both GLONASS-M and GLONASS-K spacecraft is created by JSC Russian Space Systems (CSW), but contains an element base of both domestic and foreign production, Stupak said, according to the the GLONASS Herald.

“If you take onboard equipment [for] GLONASS-M, a significant portion of its designers develop mainly on electronic components of domestic production,” Stupak said.

Including onboard equipment, while a significant portion of the GLONASS-M design is based on domestic electronic components, for the GLONASS-K, most of the components are Russian, but some foreign components are also being used.