GLONASS Satellites Will Be ‘Made in Russia’ Only

May 26, 2015  - By
Image: GPS World
Image: GPS World

JSC “Russian Space Systems” (RCC), together with ISS Reshetnev, plan to remove imported components in construction of GLONASS satellites, according to an Izvestia article.

Production of the advanced GLONASS satellite “GLONASS-K” is scheduled to begin later this year.

According JSC CEO Andrew Tyulina, the company intends to stop the use of foreign electronic components as soon as possible. The plan is to have 80 percent of the satellites’ electronic components payload be domestically produced by 2019.

The move seems to be spurred by international sanctions in response to Russia’s occupation of Ukraine. Following the occupation, the United States began to prohibit supply of electronic components to Russia, and the British company E2V failed to get permission to import equipment for the Russian space observatory Spektr-UV, Izvestia reports. Russia had difficulty securing components before then, however. In 2013, as relations with the U.S. cooled following Russia’s harboring of Edward Snowden and events in Syria, the U.S. State Department did not authorize a supply of components for the spacecraft Geo-IK-2. 

The expected component supplier will be the largest designer and manufacturer of electronic components in Russia, Roselectronika, an entity that unites 112 companies, research institutes and design bureaus. The total investment in Roselectronika will exceed 210 billion rubles to 2020, including provision for modernizing industrial sites that produce electronic payloads for space.

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