Russia can't abandon imported equipment in navigation satellites

Russia is unable to replace all foreign-made hardware used in its global navigation system, Glonass, in a few years, a producer said Thursday.
"Import substitution will be connected with corrections of the entire design documentation," Grigory Stupak, deputy head of the Russian Space Systems company, said at the Fourth International School on Satellite Navigation, an annual week-long forum.
"We are not ready at the moment to refuse foreign (parts) in some case. The missing components, of course, need to be compensated by reliable suppliers," RIA Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.
He did not give details on the "reliable suppliers," but Igor Komarov, head of Russia's United Rocket Space Corporation, said earlier that the country will gradually replace the hardware imported from Western countries with the equipment made in China, South Korea and other Asian nations.
Russia plans to deploy 40 to 50 Glonass ground stations around the world, including in the United States, South Africa and Brazil. The system deployment started in 1993 as Russia's answer to the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS).
Meanwhile, Stupak said, given recent tensions between Moscow and Washington, his company would postpone the talks about placing the Glonass base station in the U.S. state of Alaska.