The satellite navigation system GLONASS was conceived in the late 1960s, and formal requirements were completed in 1970. The government of the Soviet Union made a decision to develop the system in 1976. Design work was carried out by specialists led by Vladimir Cheremisin at NPO PM in Krasnoyarsk-26. The first launch took place in 1982. Until its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union launched 43 GLONASS-related satellites. Work on the system was continued by the Russian Federation which brought it its full operational capability in 1995. In the following years, the system fell into disrepair due to the economic crisis in the country and diminished space funding. Starting from 2000, the government under President Vladimir Putin made the restoration of GLONASS a top priority; its funding was doubled and after a lull of several years, launches were restarted again. In 2003, a new satellite design, GLONASS-M, was introduced. By early 2011, GLONASS had 22 operational satellites, two short of the required constellation of 24 to provide global coverage. The latest and significantly improved satellite type, GLONASS-K, was launched in February 2011.
1970–1979: Inception and design The first satellite-based radio navigation system developed in the Soviet Union was Tsiklon, which had the purpose of providing ballistic missile submarines a method for accurate positioning. 31 Tsiklon satellites were launched between 1967 and 1978. The main problem with the system was that, although highly accurate for stationary or slow-moving ships, it required several hours of observation by the receiving station to fix a position, making it unusable for many navigation purposes and for the guidance of the new generation of ballistic missiles. From 1968 to 1969, the research institutes of the Ministry of Defence, Academy of Sciences, and Soviet Navy cooperated to develop a single system for navigation of their air, land, sea, and space forces. The requirements of such a system were formulated in a document completed in 1970. Six years later, in December 1976, a plan for developing the system was accepted by the Central Committee of the CPSU and of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in a decree entitled "On Deployment of the Unified Space Navigation System GLONASS." The task of designing GLONASS was given to a group of young specialists at NPO PM in the city of Krasnoyarsk-26 (today called Zheleznogorsk). Under the leadership of the Vladimir Cheremisin, they developed different proposals, from which the institute's director Grigory Chernyavsky selected the final one. The work was completed in the late 1970s; the system would consist of 24 satellites operating at an altitude of 20,000 km in medium circular orbit. It would be able to promptly fix the receiving station's position based on signals from 4 satellites, and also reveal the object's speed and direction. The satellites would be launched 3 at a time on the heavy-lift Proton rocket. Due to the large number of satellites needed for the program, NPO PM delegated the manufacturing of the satellites to PO Polyot in Omsk, which had better production capabilities. Originally, GLONASS was designed to have an accuracy of 65 m, but in reality it had an accuracy of 20 m in the civilian signal and 10 m in the military signal. The first generation GLONASS satellites were 7.8 m tall, had a width of 7.2 m, measured across their solar panels, and a mass of 1,260 kg.
1980–1995: Achieving full orbital constellation In the early 1980s, NPO PM received the first prototype satellites from PO Polyot for ground tests. Many of the produced parts were of low quality and NPO PM engineers had to perform substantial redesigning, leading to a delay. On 12 October 1982, three satellites, designated Kosmos-1413, Kosmos-1414, and Kosmos-1415 were launched aboard a Proton rocket. As only one GLONASS satellite was ready in time for the launch instead of the expected three, it was decided to launch it along with two mock-ups. The American media reported the event as a launch of one satellite and "two secret objects." For a long time, the Americans could not find out the nature of those "objects". The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) covered the launch, describing GLONASS as a system "created to determine positioning of civil aviation aircraft, navy transport and fishing-boats of the Soviet Union". From 1982 through April 1991, the Soviet Union successfully launched a total of 43 GLONASS-related satellites plus five test satellites. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, twelve functional GLONASS satellites in two planes were operational; enough to allow limited usage of the system (to cover the entire territory of the country, 18 satellites would have been necessary.) The Russian Federation took over control of the constellation and continued its development. In 1993, the system, now consisting of 12 satellites, was formally declared operational and in December 1995, the constellation was finally brought to its optimal status of 24 operational satellites. This brought the precision of GLONASS on-par with the American GPS system, which had achieved full operational capability two years earlier.
1996–1999: Economic crisis and fall into disrepair Since the first generation satellites operated for 3 years each, to keep the system at full capacity, two launches per year would have been necessary to maintain the full network of 24 satellites. However, in the financially difficult period of 1989–1999, the space program's funding was cut by 80% and Russia consequently found itself unable to afford this launch rate. After the full complement was achieved in December 1995, there were no further launches until December 1999. As a result, the constellation reached its lowest point of just 6 operational satellites in 2001. As a prelude to demilitarisation, responsibility of the program was transferred from the Ministry of Defence to Russia's civilian space agency Roscosmos.
2000–2007: Renewed efforts and modernization
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