[SatNews] The Russian Defense Ministry has postponed the launch of the country's Glonass-K satellite until 2011.

The satellite was originally scheduled for a launch via a Soyuz-2.1.b carrier rocket from the Plesetsk Space Center on December 28. The Glonass-K, which has a service life of 10 years, will beam five navigation signals —four in the special L1 and L2 bands and one for civilian applications in the L3 band.

A Proton-M carrier rocket with three Glonass-M satellites veered off course and sunk in the Pacific Ocean on December 5. The failure was attributed to a series of manufacturing mistakes. The satellites were supposed to finalize the creation of Russia's Glonass Global Navigation Satellite System. Russia currently has a total of 26 Glonass satellites in orbit, although only 20 of them are functional.