In February 1991, two Russians joined this magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board: Nocolay Ivanov, Ph.D., research and development director of the USSR’s Institute for Space Device Engineering, and Gennady Gromov, Ph.D., chief designer general for the Leningrad-based All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Radio Equipment. Both were leading experts in GLONASS.
In October 1982, 4 1/2 years after the launch of the first GPS satellite, the Soviet Union had launched the first test satellite for its new constellation. It peaked in 1996, with more than two dozen operating satellites in orbit, then declined, hitting a nadir of just seven operational satellites in 2001.
Additionally, early GLONASS satellites were plagued by orbital failures and short lifetimes. Many observers wrote the system off as another victim of the economic and political disarray following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Then, the new Russian government reversed the trend by substantially increasing its funding for the program. By October 2011, the full orbital constellation of 24 satellites was restored. Next year, Russia plans to launch Glonass K-2, the latest generation of GLONASS satellites.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, much international scientific and technical cooperation with the country has been on hold. On April 8, 2022, the European Commission declared: “Following the Russian invasion against Ukraine and in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, the Commission has decided to suspend the cooperation with Russian entities in research, science and innovation.” Two months later, on June 11, 2022, the White House followed suit: “Consistent with U.S. domestic and international law, we will wind down institutional, administrative, funding, and personnel relationships and research collaborations in the fields of science and technology with Russian government-affiliated research institutions.”
By contrast, cooperation between the U.S. and European space agencies continues apace, as evidenced by a recent successful test of the interoperability of GPS and Galileo receivers.
Meanwhile, in 2024, China reached a total of 45 operational BeiDou satellites in orbit. It is also conducting research on BDS technology upgrades and technological trials for integration with low-Earth orbit PNT systems. It touts this, together with its active participation in the work of relevant United Nations bodies, as enhancing international collaboration.
At the latest two-day meeting of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board, in early December, much of the agenda was devoted to updates on international GNSS capabilities — including Japan’s QZSS and Korea’s KPS — and discussion of how GPS compares with the other global and regional navigation satellite system constellations.
Future GPS policies and budgets will depend largely on the choices made by the next U.S. administration.
War, international collaboration and the periodic changes in national perspectives and priorities brought about by elections contribute as much as scientific and technical research to the prospects of GNSS — this fantastic global utility that enables us, among other things, to track the movement of containers from Shanghai to Los Angeles, fly safely from New York to Paris and coordinate universal time across our planet.
