I have delivered a letter to the Chair of the ILRS Governing Board calling for action on the issue.
The letter reads:
In a resolution adopted on March 2 (2022), the United Nations General Assembly has strongly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian government has become irresponsible, aggressive and oppressive. Evidence of Russian military committing war crimes in Ukraine is mounting.
ILRS has reacted to this crisis by issuing a neutral statement, while multiple member SLR stations have stopped supporting GLONASS satellites for all the rightful reasons communicated by EUROLAS Data Center in the statement from March 4, registered as SLR-Mail No.2745.
I understand and respect the neutral position of ILRS that manifests through the fact that there are no voices within our community calling for removing Russian scientists or SLR stations from the organization. However, there is a strong opinion that, in response to the Russian war, the GLONASS satellites should be removed from the ILRS list of supported missions, as they are a part of the military systems.
This cutting-edge satellite technology, a component of the Russian war machine, can no longer be of interest to ILRS!
According to the ILRS Terms of Reference, section 3.1, the ILRS Governing Board “decides upon the satellites to be included in the ILRS tracking list”.
Please vote on removing GLONASS satellites from the ILRS tracking list now!