Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed on Monday introducing the Glonass navigation system throughout the country’s regions and getting it onto "commercial rails".
Glonass is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS and is designed for both military and civilian use. Both systems allow users to determine their positions to within a few meters.
Russia currently has a total of 22 Glonass satellites in orbit, but only 16 of them are operational. The system requires 18 operational satellites for continuous navigation services covering the entire territory of Russia and at least 24 satellites to provide navigation services worldwide.
The Glonass navigation satellite system is expected to start operating worldwide by the end of 2010.
