MOSCOW. Oct 17 (Interfax) - The Russian government has approved a concept of the federal Glonass program, which implies the allocation of 330.5 billion rubles in 2012-2020, the newspaper Izvestia cited a high-ranking source from the Federal Space Agency on Monday.
A goal is to raise the Glonass navigation satellite network's precision to the GPS level, the newspaper said.
"The Federal Space Agency assumed the commitment of reaching the precision level of Navstar-GPS when it requested the allocation of 330.5 billion rubles. The Agency pledged to upgrade the precision to 70-80 centimeters in 2020. The precision will be two meters in the case of lesser financing, 245 billion rubles, which is more preferable to the Finance Ministry," the source said.
The newspaper said that Glonass' current precision is five meters, while GPS' precision is two meters.
"We will improve the positioning precision to nearly 50 centimeters under ideal conditions in 2020. So far, this is the limit to navigation systems. The limit to their space segments. The use of auxiliary systems can bring the precision to three centimeters in the real time," Central Research Institute of Machine Building Deputy Director, co-drafter of the federal program Sergei Revnivykh told the newspaper.
The government may approve the detailed federal program, "Maintenance, Development and Operation of the Glonass Network in 2012-2020", before the New Year, the newspaper said.