After China and Russia announced the establishment of satellite ground navigation stations with each other, China began to send satellite , which enhances the Beidou system navigation accuracy, into orbit, while Russia is launching the GLONAS-K satellite to complete the navigation constellation. The two countries set up navigation stations for each other seem to be strategic mutual assistance, but from a technical perspective, it is actually more of China's unilateral support for Russia.
According to the Russian Satellite News Agency, Russia has recently successfully launched a GLONAS-K navigation satellite. Just three days before Russia launched the satellite, China also used the Long March 11 rocket to send two microcenti space Beidou low-orbit navigation enhancement system test satellites into predetermined orbits by hitting two satellites in one shot.
China launches the Long March 11 launch vehicle
Combined with the previous signing of a mutual agreement between China and Russia, the two countries are actively increasing the number of navigation satellites to improve the accuracy of the navigation system.
However, China is further increasing navigation accuracy when Beidou meets existing needs, while Russia is still at the stage of allowing Glonas to meet navigation needs. Why do
say so? Because the existing Glonas navigation system not only cannot meet civilian needs, it cannot even do a good job in military positioning of the Russian army. The Glonas-K satellite launched by Russia this time is likely to be an enhancement satellite, used to enhance the positioning accuracy of the Russian army in the Ukrainian region.
Russia launches GLONAS-K navigation satellite
The reason why Russia speculates is that the main long-range strikes of the Russian army are currently only Iskander-M, Iskander-K, caliber and KH-101 ballistics and cruise missile . When attacking ground targets, these missiles, need to use navigation satellites to provide end guidance data. Once the positioning data is biased, the missile will not be able to directly hit the target or even directly off the target.
If it attacks a soft target without protection, this problem can be compensated by the power of the warhead. However, if the attack is a reinforced target that cannot be destroyed without direct hitting, even a distance of only a few meters may lead to the failure of the entire missile strike operation.
In the early days of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Iskander missile launched by Russia failed to hit the runway directly due to errors in positioning data, resulting in the Russian army only destroyed the Ukrainian fighter jets on the apron and failed to completely destroy the airport. Allowing the surviving Ukrainian fighter jets to quickly transfer to the rear to preserve their strength.
Off-target Russian missile
Because the navigation accuracy of the GLONAS system is not as good as GPS, Russia's navigation chips often adopt a dual-mode design to improve navigation accuracy by receiving navigation data from GLONAS and GPS at the same time.
It is worth mentioning that Russia not only uses dual-mode navigation chips on civilian navigation equipment, but also uses chips that can be compatible with GPS navigation data.
Some troops even use GPS directly as the main navigation method. Russia's Gronas has become the satellite navigation system , the Russian army least likes to use.
Russian Su-34 pilots using GPS navigation system
But GPS is still the American navigation system after all, and no one can guarantee whether the United States will suddenly shut down the civilian frequency band of GPS, making the Russian army "lost" on the streets of Ukraine.
Therefore, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia has been trying to improve the navigation accuracy of the GLONAS system as a backup method to deal with GPS failure.
However, it is one thing to have backup methods, and whether this method works is another matter. Because the GLONAS system's poor navigation accuracy is due to insufficient satellites, and Russia does not have the ability to fill this gap in the short term.
You should know that before the satellite launch, there were only 26 satellites in the GLONAS navigation system in orbit, and 22 were in working state, of which 19 were the old GLONAS-M navigation satellites.
GLONAS Navigation System Commemorative Stamp
According to the experience of building a GPS navigation system in the United States, at least 24 satellites are needed to achieve preliminary global positioning. If the navigation accuracy in a specific area is to be further improved, another 4-8 enhanced navigation satellites need to be added.
Considering that Russia currently has only 22 satellites in operation, even if it abandons the global positioning needs, if it wants to improve the navigation accuracy of the GLONAS system to the military level, at least 3 satellites need to be launched as enhanced satellites to improve the positioning accuracy in Europe. Make Gronas' positioning accuracy reach the "usable" standard.
GLONAS-K navigation satellite
Of course, Russia has another option, that is, to fully use China's Beidou satellite navigation system .
Although China and Russia have not yet opened up military-level navigation frequency bands, the Beidou satellite can only provide civil-level navigation data to Russia, but since the Beidou satellite has as many as 35 in orbit, which is more than GPS, the satellite's own technical level is also world-leading. In fact, it can provide civilian equipment with meter-level navigation accuracy, which is enough to meet basic military needs.
Beidou satellite navigation system
You should know that even the US military in the Asia-Pacific region uses Beidou satellite navigation instead of its own GPS in daily flight missions, which shows how excellent the Beidou system is.
, which is why Russia suddenly chose to announce the signing of a mutual navigation station agreement with China. Because for Russia, in the foreseeable future, a single GLONAS system can only solve Russia's problems in the field of satellite navigation.
But if Gronas can be linked to the Beidou system, Russia's satellite navigation capabilities will be greatly improved. Not to mention civilian demand, even military demand can be solved together.
And this approach to setting up navigation stations can also prevent other countries from condemning China's support for Russia, because China only develops civil navigation frequency bands to Russia. Although the accuracy is very high, it is indeed civilian frequency bands. As for how Russia will use these "civil navigation" equipment? Take a look at the civil drone on the front line, and the results are self-evident.
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