Russia will launch another three Glonass-M satellites on board a Proton heavy carrier rocket later this year to complete the orbiting Glonass grouping. The Government annouced, in a news conference in Moscow, that Roscosmos allocated about $100 million for the launch.
It was also launched, this week, the GEO-Ik-2 spacecraft, however, because of the missing contact after the launch, probably the vehicle was lost in the space.
Besides, the recent loss of three Glonass-M satellites as a result of a series of mistakes made by the Russian Energia rocket corporation cost Russia $82 million in direct damages.
The December 5 launch of the Proton-M carrier rocket was supposed to conclude the forming of Russia’s Glonass navigation system, a project similar to GPS in the United States.
Russia has switched on two reserve Glonass-M satellites in orbit to compensate for the ones that were lost. Roscosmos will also launch a Glonass-K satellite in Feb.-March to bring the current number of operational satellites in orbit to 23.
The complete grouping must have 24 operational and 2-3 reserve satellites for Glonass network to operate with global coverage.
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