U.S. GPS (Global Positioning System) ground stations located in Russia will continue to run under valid agreements but their use for military purposes will be excluded, Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) made a statement for ITAR-TASS news agency.
“In compliance with the Russian government’s instruction, Roscosmos and the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations implemented measures on June 1, 2014, which rule out the use of information from global seismographic network stations working on signals from the GPS system and located on the territory of the Russian Federation for purposes not stipulated by the existing agreements and for military purposes in particular,” Roscosmos said in a communique.
Russian Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin who supervises the defense and industrial sector in the Russian government said on May 13 that Russia would suspend the operation of 11 GPS stations located in the Kaluga and Sverdlovsk regions, the Krasnoyarsk territory, Yakutia, Irkutsk, Magadan, Southern Sakhalin, and the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. He noted that such a decision would be a counter-move due to lack of progress in talks with the U.S. on the deployment of Russia’s GLONASS stations on the American territory.
Meanwhile, representatives of Roskosmos, the Russian Academy of Science, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were assigned to the working group to push the talks. The Vice-Premier highlighted that if in three months the talks do not end up with an acceptable outcome for both parties, the U.S. GPS stations will be terminated completely since September 1.
On May 26, Rogozin told journalists that the GPS stations which could stop their operation on June 1 were used to transmit seismic information to the U.S. authorities. Later, he reiterated his warning that if the American side continues ignoring Russia’s proposal to deploy GLONASS on the U.S. territory, Russia might start dismantling them from September 1.
Experts said that even if GPS stations were suspended in Russia, it would not affect the operation of civilian smart phones, navigators, and other devices used by Russian consumers.
GPS is a global satellite positioning system designed and used by the U.S. Department of Defense. Besides, navigation signals can be applied for civilian purposes. A GPS satellite transmits a navigation signal giving precise data of latitude, longitude, altitude, and time. More than a billion people around the globe reportedly use this system. The GPS satellite network includes about 30 functioning spacecraft.
