How GPS and GLONASS Got Together — and Other Recent Events
June 3, 2011 By: Javad Ashjaee GPS World
The recent broadcast of the first CDMA signal from the new GLONASS-K satellite culminates a long series of events that began in 1989. A key participant gives a first-hand account of the history of many meetings, formal and informal, that created true interoperability between the two major satellite systems, giving users a modern GNSS in action.
October 18, 1989, the Queen Elizabeth Auditorium in London, around 8:30 am. Unknown to me, two 60-minute periods were about to imprint themselves indelibly on my memory.
I walked up the stairs to the exhibition booth of my company, Ashtech, at The Royal Institute of Navigation conference. My good friend, the late Ann Beatty, met me and asked, “Any news from home?”
I thought it was just a casual customary question, and replied: “Thanks, all OK.” She had a strange look on her face. She continued: “Are all your family really OK?” I replied again: “Thanks, all good.” She then realized that I had no clue about the cataclysmic event that had hit the San Francisco Bay area. She abruptly said, “Don’t you know? The big one came! The big earthquake hit San Francisco!”
Californians know the rumors that when The Big One comes, Nevada will have ocean frontage. Now she was telling me that The Big One came! I rushed to the phone, and the recorded AT&T message said, “All lines to your area are out of service.” It took me another hour to find out that this was not yet The Big One, and that my family was safe. I will never forget these 60 minutes of my life. Never!
Nor will I ever forget the events of the next 60 minutes.
After the stress had settled a bit, a delegation from the Russian Space Agency visited our booth. First they expressed their sympathy regarding the earthquake. Then we discussed GPS technology and its similarities with GLONASS. Both systems were fairly new then, although GPS had started first, with a Block I launch in 1978, followed by GLONASS with a launch in 1982. At the time we met in London, GPS was flying 12 satellites, and GLONASS also had 12 in orbit.
The Russian delegation visited all GPS manufacturers’ booths in the exhibition hall and then gathered in the coffee area for their private discussions. A few hours before the conference closed, they returned to our booth and said, “We want to combine GPS and GLONASS, and you are our first choice.” Simply put, I was fascinated and excited.
After working out visa and travel details, four months later I arrived in Moscow in the cold days of February 1990. It was still the Soviet Union.
I had grown up in Iran where the U.S.S.R. was our neighbor to the north. Remembering the global political landscape of my childhood days, I felt both fascination and fear as my airplane landed at Moscow airport.
Upon meeting the people who greeted me at the airport, my fears disappeared, and my fascination grew stronger.
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