• Forum
• SITREP
• Military
• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security

• Space

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Public Eye

Russia unveils new earth remote sensing system

RIA Novosti

19/08/2005 16:50

MOSCOW. (Yuri Zaitsev for RIA Novosti.) Earth remote sensing (ERS) systems are widely used throughout the world, as the data obtained has many useful social and economic applications.

These systems allow for improvements to be made in such fields as geographic and thematic mapping, land surveying, pollution control and environmental monitoring, hydro-engineering and land improvement, logging and reforestation, mineral exploration, transport planning, safety at sea, seafood production, and the safety of the fishing industry.

ERS systems are currently based on large, heavy spacecraft. They are expensive to develop, manufacture and operate, and as a result, the data is also not cheap. The underfunding of the space industry in Russia and the collapse of traditional production ties following the disintegration of the Soviet Union have resulted in increased lead times for the development and launch of new space vehicles to meet current demand for ERS. The more complicated the craft, the more time and money it takes to build. Environmental monitoring has suffered as a result, and Russian users have been forced to turn to data obtained by foreign ERS systems, which is not always provided for free.

Although in recent years Russia has been unable to fully use its orbital capacity for observing the Earth from space, its strong point has always been the high resolution of the satellite data obtained, in particular that received from national security spacecraft.

One of the ways to make Russia's ERS systems more efficient is to develop inexpensive compact craft suitable for piggyback orbit on heavy launch vehicles. Alternatively, the systems could be launched by light vehicles, most of which are converted decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missiles.

At the end of 2005, Russia plans to launch its experimental ERS satellite Monitor-E. The launch prototype is currently undergoing final tests at the Khrunichev Center, known for its Proton carrier rockets and the Zarya and Zvezda modules for the International Space Station. Monitor-E marks an important stage in the Center's efforts to develop advanced space systems for the national economy. Russia is the first country to develop a small-sized spacecraft with the same capabilities as a heavier craft for the purposes of carrying out environmental monitoring.

The original idea was that this would be a commercial project funded by the Khrunichev Center. When the vehicle was in its final stages, the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos), prompted by the need to renew the country's ERS satellite formation, the condition of which had become critical in recent years, decided to include the Monitor-E project in the federal space program. If this had been done earlier, the new Russian satellite could have been in orbit for two years now.

The Agency will own 70% of Monitor-E's information-gathering capacity, in order to cater for government users, and the Khrunichev Center will own 30%, which it will use for commercial applications.

Monitor-E belongs to a new generation of spacecraft with intelligent on-board systems. It is unpressurized and modular in design, which has cut down construction time, and it is equipped with two electronic optical cameras with resolutions of 8 meters and 20 meters. The Yakhta unified space platform developed at the Khrunichev Center serves as its base. The spacecraft weighs 750kg. Almost all of its utility and specialized units are the very latest to be developed by the Russian aerospace industry.

The underlying principle behind the creation of the new Russian ERS system has been to provide a unified system, capable of providing for all functions, from launch to end products. Its principal component is the formation of smaller spacecraft based on the unified platform.

The best results in remote sensing are obtained by superimposing images from different satellites. For example, it could be very helpful to combine pictures taken using a spaceborne radar with pictures taken in the optical range, since radar observations are unaffected by weather conditions. New vehicles will be added to the Monitor formation in the future: The Monitor-I (thermal), Monitor-S (stereo), and Monitor-O (high resolution), all equipped with a variety of optical electronic devices, and the Monitor-R, which will have radar onboard. Light carrier rockets will launch all of these satellites.

The fundamentally new technology of the Monitor ERS system, and the periodicity of the observations provided, will make the new Russian system highly competitive on the world market.

Yuri Zaitsev is an expert from the Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences