GLONASS Sucks, Really, Ask Putin

[During Christmas 2007] independent observers expressed concern that official optimism about GLONASS was unfounded, that of the 18 GLONASS satellites currently in orbit only 13 were in fact operational, that the positioning system will be dysfunctional for at least two more years, and that at best GLONASS provided positional accuracy of only 10–17 meters (Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 26, 2007). In less than a month Ivanov has come around to agree with the critics, announcing that the positioning system is inaccurate and does not cover all of Russia all of the time, that the GLONASS satellites are unreliable, that Russian industry is not producing GLONASS positioners, and the leadership of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) “should be held personally responsible for the shortcomings in the work of the global navigation system.

[...]

The Russian space industry is reasonably competitive, unlike many other sectors of the Soviet technological and industrial heritage. Roskosmos is earning billions of dollars from contracts with NASA to service the International Space Station and by making and launching foreign and Russian satellites (Itar-Tass, April 12, 2007). Roskosmos has been successfully integrating its products with Western-made hardware. Last week a Proton-M rocket successfully launched a Russian Express-AM33 communications satellite from Kazakhstan. The satellite will provide commercial and government communication services. The satellite's platform was made in the closed nuclear city of Krasnoyarsk-26 (Zheleznogorsk) at the same industrial unit that makes the GLONASS satellites, while the electronic hardware of Express-AM33 was provided by the French company Thales Alenia Space (RIA-Novosti, January 28).

Popovkin explained that Russia widely uses foreign components to make satellites but cannot buy U.S. space-quality electronics, because they may be sabotaged by secret “insertions.” So Moscow is forced to buy cheap replacements not designed for satellite use from other sources. Thus the Russian military gets satellites that are sabotage-free – but they do not work well.

Really?