The spacecraft has three-axis stabilisation to keep it in the correct orientation, and broadcast signals in the L1, L2 and L3 navigation bands for Russian military and commercial users.

[6] Kosmos 2471 was launched from Site 43/4 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwest Russia.

A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat upper stage was used to perform the launch, which took place at 03:07:15 UTC on 26 February 2011.

The United States Space Command assigned it the Satellite Catalog Number 37372.

On 11 November 2021, the satellite was decommissioned and removed from the operational GLONASS constellation.