Article Posted on : - Dec 21, 2010

A file photo

NEW DELHI (PTI): India and Russia Tuesday signed an agreement to share high precision signals from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS).

The agreement to share the high precision signal from GLONASS satellites was signed on the sidelines of the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Glonass is the Russian equivalent of the US Global Positioning System and is designed for both military and civilian use. Both systems allow users to determine their positions to within a few meters.

The agreement envisages Russia providing access to the GLONASS High Precision Navigation signals to India, officials said.

During their bilateral talks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Medvedev appreciated the progress being made in India's utilisation of GLONASS.

Russia currently has a total of 26 GLONASS satellites in orbit, but three are operational.

Earlier this month, Russia's attempt to launch three more GLONASS-M satellites failed after the rocket carrying them deviated from its path and plunged into the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii.

The three lost satellites would have allowed Russia to operate a complete GLONASS network of 24 operational satellites and have several satellites in reserve.

In March, Roscosmos, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NIS GLONASS signed a Memorandum of Cooperation.

Later, representatives from NIS GLONASS and ISRO's commercial arm -- Antrix agreed to set up a joint venture for providing navigation and information services on the GLONASS-GPS platform.

Singh and Medvedev also reviewed the progress made in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation.

"They expressed satisfaction at the extension of the Integrated Long Term Program (ILTP) for scientific and technical cooperation for another decade and its focus on identifying innovation-led technology programmes," said a joint statement issued after the talks.

The two leaders said creation of new and innovative technologies would be at the heart of the respective economic modernisation programmes in the two countries.

"Continuous efforts would be made to identify programmes that would be built on the existing linkages between Indian and Russian scientific establishments. The new Indian- Russian S&T Centre would facilitate such programmes," the statement said.