The unfinished building of the GLONASS Center went up in price twice

The building is being built since 2010 in Moscow and now its cost is set at 2 billion rubles - an increase in the estimate is due to the need to search for domestic equipment to replace those that have fallen under foreign sanctions.
02.01.2018
Izvestia
Origin source
The construction of a center for the operation of the Russian navigation system GLONASS will cost twice as much as previously expected. Today the complex is estimated at 2 billion rubles, its commissioning was postponed from 2018 to 2019. This is due to the need to import substitution of equipment that has fallen under the sanctions.

The construction of the Center for control and confirmation of the tactical and technical characteristics of the GLONASS system (the official name of the complex) on the territory of TsNIIMash, the main scientific institute of Roskosmos State Corporation, began in 2010. Then the work was suspended due to investigation of violations during construction. The building is still unfinished. Last year it was a question of putting the center into operation in late 2018.

- Terms of object commissioning were postponed to 2019 in connection with specification of budget financing parameters. The construction audit of design and estimate documentation conducted in 2017 determined the need to make changes to this documentation, the institute said.

The building should accommodate the Information and Analysis Center GLONASS. This division of TsNIIMash manages the civil infrastructure of the Russian navigation system, provides information support to its customers, provides interaction with international structures and other navigation systems.

The GLONASS system was created by Roskosmos and the Ministry of Defense jointly in the interests of both organizations. The orbital group is controlled by the military from the Main Test Space Center named after Titov (Krasnoznamensk, Moscow Region).

According to the task for the modification of the design estimates (Izvestia is at the disposal of), the construction time was extended because of the need to "replace the project technological equipment, engineering equipment, whose access to the Russian Federation is limited, to equipment similar to the project" .

In particular, it is necessary to find new, not subject to sanctions options for the supply of equipment for a data center, a local area network, collective means of displaying information, etc.

To complete the construction works and commissioning of the building, according to the documentation, 981 million rubles were requested. Financing is expected from the means of the Federal Target Program GLONASS for 2012-2020. 1.05 billion rubles have already been spent on capital construction.

According to Andrei Lysenko, an independent expert in the field of navigation and information technologies, the increase in the total cost of the project is connected with external sanctions and the state policy of technological import substitution, because of which computer equipment has grown in price.

- There are difficulties with the modern electronic component base and computational and hardware for high-precision measuring instruments - the main equipment of the center, - said Andrei Lysenko.

According to the editor of the industry magazine "GLONASS Vestnik" Konstantin Kreidenko, the building needs to be completed and then removed from the subordination of Roskosmos.

"This structure should have an interdepartmental status, and not be part of the subordinate to Roskosmos," Konstantin Kreidenko said. - It is necessary to unite in the center all services that deal with GLONASS at various levels: from international to municipal.

As reported by "Izvestia", the construction of the GLONASS Center started in June 2010 was suspended at the end of 2011 due to exceeding the estimate. Against a number of officials involved in the construction of organizations, a criminal case was instituted under Part 3 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Fraud committed by a person using his official position"). The investigation is not yet complete.