[Infowarrior] - Russia launches final satellites for its own GPS

[Richard Forno]

Russia launches final satellites for its own GPS
Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:45pm GMT
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL2510281920071225

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia successfully launched a rocket on Tuesday carrying
the last three satellites to complete a navigation system to rival America's
GPS.

The military-run GLONASS mapping system works over most of Russia and is
expected to cover the globe by the end of 2009, once all its 24 navigational
satellites are operating.

A space rocket blasted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on the steppes
of neighboring ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, from which Russia rents the facility.

"The launch was carried out smoothly at 10:32 p.m. (1932 GMT)," RIA news
agency quoted a spokesman for the Russian space agency as saying. "We expect
satellites to separate from the booster on the orbit at 2:24 a.m. (2324
GMT)".

Work on GLONASS -- or Global Navigation Satellite System -- began in the
Soviet Union in the mid-1970s to give its armed forces exact bearings around
the world.

The collapse of the Russian economy in the late 1990s drained funds and the
plans withered, but President Vladimir Putin has ensured the project is now
being lavishly funded from a brimming government budget.

Officials said GLONASS would mainly be used alongside the U.S. global
positioning system, which Washington can switch off for civilian
subscribers, as it did during recent military operations in Iraq.

(Writing by Chris Baldwin, editing by Richard Meares)