Critical Infrastructure of the Ground Control Complex for the Orbital Satellite Constellation

Abstract

The article is devoted to determining the priority of objects of the ground control complex of an orbital constellation of satellites as objects of critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation. The use of high-precision weapons, navigation, communications, control, and transport increasingly depends on the functioning of the orbital constellation of satellites. The ground control com- plex for the orbital constellation of satellites of the Russian Ministry of Defense includes a Mission Control Center and more than a dozen stationary command and measurement points. The equipment of the ground-based orbital constellation control complex requires strict reference to the spatial-temporal operating parameters, especially for the Global Navigation Satellite System, which, in turn, determines the effectiveness of high-precision weapons guidance, targeting, and location of objects, the functioning of communications, transportation systems and other means comprising corresponding navigation receivers. For spacecraft, and primarily for Global Navigation Satellite System satellites, the problem of having an onboard time scale of high stability is relevant, which is determined by the functioning of the unified time system, which is an integral part of both the ground control complex and the orbital constellation. In the most general terms, the basis of the unified time system of the ground-based control complex for the orbital satellite constellation is made up of time and frequency standards distributed throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, located mainly in ground-based command and measurement centers and measurement laboratories. The unified time system is the most secure technical system, which is formed as a composite measure at the highest level of the hierarchy of accuracy classes of frequency standards. Therefore, the most significant control objects of the orbital constellation are equipped with group standards, which can be considered a criterion for classifying the objects of the ground control complex of the orbital constellation of satellites as the critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation. It was determined that the hierarchical sequence of importance for the critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation of objects in the unified time system of the orbital constellation of the satellite control complex takes into account GLONASS objects, the standards of the State Service of Time and Frequency and determination of the parameters of the Earth’s rotation of the Russian Federation, as well as the standards of the «Quazar KTS» complex.