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Russia launches new GPS-type satellite

Russia today successfully launched another one of its GPS-type Glonass satillites, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport.

This was the first launch of this type of satellite in more than five years due to an inability to get parts because of U.S. sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In response, the Russian government instituted an export-replacement program aimed at providing indigenously produced electronics for the nation’s industries. The effort was complicated by the need in some cases to build entire factories virtually from scratch.

Around 2016, ISS Reshetnev, the prime developer of GLONASS satellites, began re-designing the GLONASS-K variant for the Russian-built components. It is unclear to what extent the original GLONASS-K series relied on foreign components, but the new batch of spacecraft did not come out of assembly until the end of the 2010s.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

26 China
18 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe

The U.S. continues to lead China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • mpthompson

    In response, the Russian government instituted an export-replacement program aimed at providing indigenously produced electronics for the nation’s industries.

    Are the lessons to learn here for the U.S. as we look to decouple from China?

  • LocalFluff

    @mpthompson
    Apparently not any good ones.

    “Import replacement” was popular 50 years ago when there still existed general industries and queuing voting general workers outside of their doors. And expert engineers in the Western World worried that:
    “- Oh yeah, perhaps you can suddenly do this what I learned from my parents and on the greatest universities. Perhaps you there in Argentina suddenly can “replace” me with your do-it-yourself-stuff? I am really afraid now. But not much.”

    It doesn’t work like that today with extreme specialization, especially in extreme technologies. Maybe in Russia today it does, I don’t think so but I don’t know. Let me try to think now. Kleptocracy. Home made. Hmm. I actually do know that it won’t work!

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