The Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces reported a strike on the VNIIR-Progress enterprise in Cheboksary (Chuvash Republic of the Russian Federation), approximately 1,000 km from the Ukrainian border. It produced Comet modules for Shahed drones, as well as Russian aerial bombs and missiles.
The Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces reported a strike on the VNIIR-Progress enterprise in Cheboksary (Chuvash Republic of the Russian Federation), approximately 1,000 km from the Ukrainian border. It produced Comet modules for Shahed drones, as well as Russian aerial bombs and missiles.
As reported by «Militarnyi» with reference to the «Cyber Flour» community, the strike was carried out by two AN-196 «Feb» drones, which flew approximately 975 km from the state border of Ukraine. The SBS notes that the strike was carried out by operators of the 14th separate UAV regiment.
The VNIIR-Progress enterprise is part of the private company ABS Electro. It specializes in the production of adaptive antennas used in drones, unified planning and correction modules (UMPK) for guided aerial bombs (KAB), and other high-precision weapons, such as missiles for the Iskander-M and Caliber complexes.
VNIIR-Progress produces GNSS receivers and antennas for the GLONASS, GPS, and Galileo satellite systems, in particular Comet-type modules, which are actively used in unmanned aerial vehicles, including kamikaze drones such as Shahed, Orlan-10, and Lancet.
«Without these components, the missiles will not be able to reach the target. Progress provides guidance, stabilization, and flight control systems that are integrated into the strike platform at the assembly stage,» said Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, commenting on the strike.
The OSINT project Molfar notes that as of 2020, VNIIR-Progress employed 206 employees. Another 100 employees were hired in 2023, and the same number is planned to be recruited in the future. Over the past year, the company has increased the production of some equipment by more than 100 times.
The Comet MAAR is a Russian protected small-sized adaptive antenna array, a controlled-reception-directional antenna (CRPA), and a navigation receiver for global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals in the L-band.
The development of the project began in 2007, and in 2022, modified navigation receivers for UAVs were created based on the Comet IAR.
There are several module options:
According to the developers, the Comet operates on the basis of a digital adaptive antenna array and «unique algorithms,» thanks to which the device «radically reduces the impact of various types of interference.» In fact, the Comet prevents the Defense Forces from landing Russian drones using electronic warfare.
«The antenna array receives useful signals from satellites. At the same time, the antenna array can be affected by powerful interference. The signals received by each of the antennas of the array differ due to their location at different points in space. If each of the signals is multiplied by specially calculated coefficients and added together, you can, on the one hand, get a more powerful signal from the satellite, and on the other hand, make sure that the interference is subtracted as a result of the summation,» said Alexander Senchenko, a software engineer who worked on Comet.
In addition to Comet, VNIIR-Progress also produces the Blesna system, which is used to assess the resistance of navigation equipment to simulated obstacles.
«As of now, the Progress plant in Cheboksary is suspending operations indefinitely. The Russians are pretending that they have 'knocked everything down,'» notes Kovalenko from the Central Production Center.
