Russia fired a geolocation satellite of Glonass

A satellite belonging to Glonass global positioning system of Russia has been decommissioned due to equipment malfunction, RIA Novosti quoted Russian aerospace industry officials as saying on October 22.

According to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), they stopped receiving signals from Glonass 728 satellite from July 1, 2013 and kept the satellite in maintenance mode. However, then every attempt to repair satellites was unsuccessful.

"Satellite has been withdrawn from the system (Glonass)" , Roscosmos said in a notice. It was put on orbit in 2008 and started operating on January 20, 2009.

Russia has just deactivated a Glonass positioning satellite - (Photo: RIA Novosti)

It is known that Glonass stands for "global positioning system" developed by Russia to compete with the US GPS navigation system and has been deployed since 1993.

It provides real-time positioning and positioning data of objects in space, sea and ground with an accuracy of one meter.

With Glonass 728 out of operation, Russia still maintains a group of 28 Glonass satellites in orbit, including 24 in operation, three in reserve and one in test flight.

RIA Novosti said the Glonass system needs at least 18 active satellites for continuous positioning services across Russia and 24 satellites to provide global navigation services.

By 2020, Russia plans to bring 30 new generation Glonass-M and Glonass-K satellites into orbit, including six backups.