Russia's Glonass satellite navigation system on Tuesday suffered its second major glitch in a matter of weeks, just hours after the Emergency Situations Ministry said it intends to equip all 73 of its aircraft with the system.
Eight of Glonass' 24 satellites malfunctioned for a half-hour period shortly after 1 a.m., Interfax reported, citing data published on the website of the Federal Space Agency's analytical center.
A ninth satellite stopped working completely at 10:20 p.m. on Monday, and remained out of order as of midday Tuesday.
The latest problems came just two weeks after all of Glonass' satellites provided inaccurate data to consumers for more than 10 hours.
Nikolai Testoyedov, general director at Reshetnev, the company that manufactured the Glonass satellites, has said that the glitches occurred while work was being carried out to update the system, Izvestia reported.
The Glonass system, which was initially designed to provide Soviet submarines with coordinates during the Cold War, has been refashioned in recent years as an alternative to the United States' Global Positioning System, or GPS. In 2012, it was announced that 300 billion rubles ($8.3 billion) had been set aside to develop Glonass until 2020.
As well as announcing its plans to fit out its aircraft with Glonass, the Emergency Situations Ministry also said that it would install the software on all its sea and river vessels, RIA Novosti reported Monday.
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