MOSCOW, May 22./ITAR-TASS/.Russia plans to sign an agreement with China this year to place ground stations of global navigation satellite system GLONASS in China and to deploy Chinese navigation satellite stations Beidou in Russia, deputy head of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Sergey Savelyev said on Thursday.

Russia and China see prospects for co-operation between global navigation satellite systems GLONASS and Beidou in the sphere of regional support and the development of chipsets. They consider ensuring compatibility of the national navigation systems, similar to the American GPS.

Roscosmos together with Russian Foreign Ministry also preparing project of updated intergovernmental space agreement with China. Detailed consultations may begin this summer, Savelyev said. 

At the same time the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) did not resume talks with US partners to place Russian ground stations of global navigation satellite system GLONASS in the United States, Sergey Savelyev said.

“Talks did not start yet, but Roscosmos is prepared for them. I hope that we will receive some response from US partners and I hope that talks will take place. It is certainly early to say about their results now. No official response came from American partners yet,” he said.

 

Space cooperation with India

The Russian Space Agency is interested in setting up a joint venture with India to produce equipment for Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System, a deputy head of the agency said on Thursday.

“We believe that the most perspective sector of interaction with our Indian colleagues is the cooperation in the sphere of the satellite navigation system,” Sergei Savelyev said in an interview with ITAR-TASS on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Russia’s St. Petersburg.

He said Roscosmos plans to send its delegation to India in June or July for talks with Indian colleagues on Glonass cooperation.

“We (Roscosmos) have recently received an official invitation from the administration of the Indian Space Research Organization to pay a visit to India with the aim of organizing full-scale meetings on the perspective directions of the bilateral cooperation,” Savelyev said adding that the agency is currently working on the preparations for this visit.

The agency’s deputy head said that Roscosmos also plans to reach an agreement with New Delhi this year on the deployment of three Glonass earth-based stations in India and hopes that the upcoming visit would contribute to such plans.

“I hope that after the visit a joint protocol would be signed and definite decisions on cooperation would be made, including on the deployment of the Russian Glonass stations in India,” Savelyev said.

The Glonass network is Russia’s analogue of the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and the system, which was put into operation in 1993, provides real-time positioning and speed data on the surface objects, as well as on the sea and airborne objects.

There are currently 29 Glonass satellites in orbit time with 24 of them active providing global coverage, while four are kept as backups and one undergoes test flights.