Sunday, December 25 2005 17:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Moscow: Russia today (Dec 25, 2005) launched three navigation satellites to restore Soviet-era global positioning system GLONASS for use by military and civilian subscribers, including India, which has been made partner for its development.

Three GLONASS-M navigation satellites with life span of seven years were launched from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 10.37 hrs IST with the help of 'Proton-K' launch vehicle, which successfully placed them at designated orbits at 14.09 hrs IST, Ria Novosti reported.

The GLONASS was developed by the Soviet military in the 1980s to rival Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS) and the future European Galileo system. Due to lack of financing after the collapse of Soviet Union, it was not fully functional.

There are 14 operational GLONASS satellites in the orbit currently and their number would be increased to minimum 18 for full functionality by 2007.

During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Moscow visit this month, India and Russia had signed a safeguard agreement to launch practical implementation of the GLONASS project and transfer of secret know-how to India.

Initial agreement providing for the joint development of the ex-Soviet space-based global navigational system was inked by the two space agencies in December 2004 during Russian President Vladimir Putin's India visit.

"Russian company Reshetnev and its Indian partner ISRO will work together on the development of Glonas-K satellites as laid down by the intergovernmental agreement," head of navigation satellite designing corporation Reshetnev, Albert Kozlov had earlier said.

According to him the agreement provides for joint work on putting into orbit Glonas-M satellites and the future Glonas-K satellites using Russian and Indian launchers.

Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Russian host Sergei Ivanov had discussed this issue in Moscow in November and the Russian Defence Ministry agreed to open up the GLONASS for India's military applications.

The signing of blanket military IPR agreement during Manmohan Singh's visit has cleared the decks for in-depth cooperation and inking accords on modalities for its joint use, a privilege denied to China, Russian sources said.