GLONASS has locked onto the target

Russian yacht Delta sailing the world under the command of captain Andrey Nevzorov tonight finished the Atlantic voyage having moored in Bridgetown Harbour on Barbados.

«Obviously, the question that tormented Andrei (and widely discussed in JZH) - how to sail after Cape Verde: go straight to the Antilles, or keep the course on the coast of South America, and then go up» to the Caribbean, was successfully resolved in favor of the first option.

Fortunately the sailors seemed to have sorted out the engine trouble that had plagued them for so long, as the yacht arrived in Barbados in good order.
Delta was launched from Moscow last summer to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's
flight.

One of the sailor's tasks is... to check the performance of the domestic navigation system GLONASS - accuracy, coverage area and time , etc. Actually the question of the yachtsman sounds (literally) as follows: «Can we recommend GLONASS system to civilian consumers for safe navigation in all areas of the world?»

So far GLONASS seems to be working fine and according to Andrey he says in some areas of the Atlantic the GLONASS signal coverage is definitely better than that of the competing NAVSTAR/GPS system. This is good news, though from formal point of view, why should GLONASS not work?
If we put the required number of satellites (not less than 24) into designed orbits and we keep dictating ephemeris to these satellites through ground centers , then obviously the system will work. Of course, today's Russia is not the USSR at its peak, but nobody has taken away the ability to launch satellites into space yet. And since there are already 24 devices in working condition in orbit it is clear that the system must work as ordered. (Actually GLONASS orbital constellation already has more than 24 satellites but some of them are not put into operation or are under maintenance - «firmware change», roughly speaking). However, this is another story.
Delta crew consists of three people: Andrei Nevzorov himself, his wife Elena and first mate Sergey Samarets. The voyage was organized with support of the Union of Journalists of Russia and Russian Cruising Club

.