The epic of Global Navigational Satellite System, or GLONASS, that has been lasting for many years, alternating triumphant reports with scandals and disappointments, is a wild mixture of the old tales about Left-hander the Master and the fake veneer tradition. According to the register of the state contracts, in the period from 2002-2007 the state has signed 58 contracts dedicated to GLONASS, totaling to 16,220,000,000 rubles.
Though, the development of the domestic system is best characterized not with the figures mentioned, but with the story of appearing of the first Russian navigators GLONASS presented to the Russian President and to the patriarch and delivered in a small lot to the Moscow shops.
The navigators were made in three months and only under a personal request by deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov. They were produced with the use of clay from Gzhel and by the research institute that actually was not to be engaged in that production. The institute had not been accepted to participate in the civil contracts within the frames of the federal purposed GLONASS program in spite of the fact its head took part in the development of the half of that program.
Last week a navigator was shown to the journalists that was made in the research institute of the space tool engineering belonging to Roskosmos and being engaged in making products needed by enforcement agencies. The new navigator allows orienting using GLONASS and American GPS. There has been enough criticizing about this domestic product, but the real wonder is it has managed to appear in the market at all.
According to Yuri Korolev, the director of the institute, last summer when Sergei Ivanov was visiting the institute’s premises, he made a request that a civil receiver have been produced by December. So it was produced. However, it’s only the antenna, developed by the institute and allowing receiving both GLONASS and GPS signals, that is the Russian component of the device. The rest of components were imported ones up to the plastic, used for making the frame, as there is no good production of plastic inside the country. Moreover, even the carton packaging had to be made in the South Korea because the domestic manufacturers charged too much for it.
At the time being, the institute has started the production of 1,000 navigators a month, which gives no commercial return, and the automatic assembly line is being prepared which is supposed to enable production of 450,000 navigators a year.
”Russian electronic industry does not produce the elements necessary for such devices” regrets Yuri Korolev. “We came to the situation that we have to produce by ourselves the support for the antennas making it from the Gzhel clay and other materials. That clay is good for making pots, but it’s not appropriate for electronic production. Though, we have no other option. We’ve been waiting for years for Rosprom to give us the element base. But even conditions for its making are not created yet. There are no enterprises to offer especially pure silicon and especially pure chemical agents”.
The general director noted that the institute attempted to make bids for development of civil production within the frames of the federal purposed program GLONASS and made bids in 21 research issues, but all of them were rejected.
”We have been developing the half of the federal program, but when it came to the budget money, other organizations appeared” Korolev wonders. Though, in general director’s judgment, that may have been a blessing: when someone gets millions from the state, there is no time to think about production itself, as one gets busy with the distributing of the means received.
Officially, production of the navigation equipment and the devices for civil use has been Rosprom’s (Rosprom belongs to the industry and energy ministry) prerogative since 2004. It’s exactly Rosprom that is the state customer of so called second federal program of GLONASS that intends, in particular, the “research and design works for making technological and testing equipment, components and element base”, and also “preparation for industrial production of navigation equipment for consumers”.
Oleg Ryazantsev, the spokesperson for Rosprom, reported that GLONASS receivers under the state order, for river and sea vessels, are practically ready to be manufactured industrially. As for navigators for private consumers, the designing works are going on and this year the devises will be ready for serial production. Ryazantsev also noted prerequisites to appear for improving the element base. Reportedly, Micron plant in the city of Zelenograd is developing the technology of making micro circuitry of a less size of 0.18 micron of the device feature.
However, our sources in the research institute of the space tool engineering are skeptical about such statements. Even today it takes technology of at least 0.11 micron to make worthy devices out of the domestic elements. Comparing, the Intel Corporation began to refuse technologies of 0.09 micron in 2005, and modern figures are 0.065 and 0.045 micron.
However, according to the Russian Federal purposed program of “Development of the electronic component base” for 2008-2015, Russia is to reach the level of 0.09 micron in 2011 at best, and the world industry will have gone far ahead by that time.
In 2008 it is planned to allot 5,500,000,000 rubles from the state budget for the federal program mentioned. That means the state seems to be willing to finance the outdated technology. In the mean time, the element base defines not only the quality of the navigators produced under the state contract and for private customers, but also the quality of equipment for the spaceships and the preciseness of the entire GLONASS.
As for foreign elements, Russian suppliers are acting in that sphere that were chosen on the basis of open and “fair” competition. As a consequence, the enterprises that receive the foreign elements have to hire an additional rather big staff of employees to verify the delivered products and to sort out the waste.
After Sergei Ivanov criticized suddenly and publicly GLONASS at the end of January saying the navigational system does not cover the whole Russia’s territory and its preciseness performance does not meet the modern requirements, there were very few who dared to tell their opinion to the deputy prime minister. Those representatives of the research institutes who dared to make public comments, all of them got it in full way.
We managed to get in touch with some experts from the enterprises and institutes participating in the GLONASS program. They noted confidentially that Ivanov’s statement made them amazed.
”Ivanov received regularly the reports about the state and composition of the spacecraft from the group supporting the GLONASS” noted one of the experts. “To secure that the navigational system cover all the countries territory it takes 18 satellites, and 24 satellites are needed to make the system really global. At the time being, we have launched 16 satellites, and all the launches were made and will be made in accordance with the schedule. In the third quarter of this year three new satellites will be orbited and another three satellites will be orbited in the fourth quarter”.
The expert assures that the figures mentioned were known as far back as the last year, and the first deputy prime minister could have been able to count and figure out that sufficient number of satellites wouldn’t have been orbited by the end of January.
”We are gradually replacing the usual satellites GLONASS that can work 3 years for the devices GLONASS-M which working term is 7 years” said a representative of one state enterprise. “The GLONASS-K will have been developed by the year of 2009, and the designers are trying to extend its working term up to 10 years. Those processes, as well as the laws of physics, do not depend on the party’s conventions and election situation.”
The sources also noted that criticizing done by Sergei Ivanov had had unexpected consequences. The matter is that contracts are being prepared with a number of Asian, Arabic and Latin American countries, who are interested in simultaneous using of the navigational systems: Russian GLONASS and American GPS. That interest is understandable as it allows not being dependent on any one of the systems. The loud and public criticizing by the first deputy prime minister was done “in good time” and made the potential customers concerned. Russian representatives had to make efforts to convince their partners not to quit their intentions, and all that was not our trump card at the negotiations.
Along with that, it is difficult to attract Russian business into this sphere, with the only exception of AFK Systema. It’s not private customers, but state bodies and the regions that are the major consumers of GLONASS. The businessmen do not show much interest for GLONASS also because the state hasn’t found time so far to arrange the proper legislation for this sphere. Very few are able to invest money realizing that tomorrow the bill might be passed making their investment to be lost.
