Russian GPS System Tracks Siberian Bridge

According to news sources, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the Siberian site where the initial stages of bridge construction are now complete and 15,000 cars per day will soon be able to cross the fifth longest river in the world. The bridge will incorporate GLONASS, the Russian equivalent to the United States Global Positioning System (GPS), and it is geared to gather technological data and information on weather conditions, construction and the bridge’s general operation.

Three GLONASS satellites have already been launched into orbit, while three more are planned to be launched by the end of the year. Operated for the Russian government by the National Space Force, GLONASS has both military and civilian applications and is based on a constellation of active satellites, which continuously transmit coded signals in two frequency bands. Users anywhere on earth (and possibly elsewhere with a few years more research) can receive these signals to identify their positions and velocity in terms of real time based on ranging measurements.

GLONASS and the US counterpart GPS share the same principles in their data transmission and positioning methods. The Russian system is operated by the Coordination Scientific Information Center (KNITS) of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

Will this bridge over Yenisey River in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia prove to be a bridge too far over the troubled water of technological progress? Perhaps the answer lies more in the realm of something Martha Stewart used to call “a good thing.”

Time and much water under the bridge will tell the full tale.