GLONASS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

摘要

On Oct. 12, 1982, the Soviet Union launched the first GLONASS satellite. Whether in reaction to the development of GPS or simply to fulfill the requirement for a system with similar capabilities for its armed forces, the Soviet Union began the development of the Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema or Global Navigation Satellite System in 1976 just three years after the start of the GPS program. The first test satellite, code-named Kosmos 1413, was accompanied by two dummy or ballast satellites with the same approximate mass since the Soviet Union was already planning to launch three GLONASS satellites at a time with its powerful rockets to save on launch costs.