RADAR Data to Monitor Russian Arctic Seas

On behalf of the Atomflot Federal State Unitary Enterprise, ScanEx RDC will conduct collection and processing of radar data on the ice situation in the Northern Sea-route and non-Arctic freezing seas of Russia. The right to manage this project was granted to ScanEx RDC within the frames of the open contest held in mid March, according to press release.

An operational radar space monitoring of the Barents, Kara, White, East-Siberian, Chukchi and Laptev Seas, as well as of the Ob, Yenisei and Lena Rivers’ estuaries will be ensured by this project.

“Thanks to its widely-spread network, ScanEx ground receiving stations in Moscow, Megion and Magadan provide the coverage of the entire Russian Arctic area. We are pleased to note that the satellite data reception and processing technology has been developed in Russia,” said Vladimir Gershenzon, General Director, ScanEx.

It was made possible to launch the programme of satellite-based monitoring of such vast territories due to the operation of the network of ScanEx ground receiving stations and the availability of proper licenses on RADARSAT-1 (Canada) and ENVISAT-1 (ESA) satellites imagery data, as well as those of 10 optical satellites of leading remote sensing operators from the USA, France, India and Israel.

The advantages of using the technology of direct reception, processing and delivery of products based on satellite data to the end users are as follows:
- High operational efficiency of data reception (1-3 hours after imaging of all the Arctic area);
- Moderate prices of the end product due to exception of foreign receiving stations from the work cycle;
- High repetivity and reliability of imaging due to the application of multi-satellite technique.

Data will be delivered to end users via FTP-protocols and internal “Atomflot-Kosmosnimki” geo-service that has been created to resolve project tasks based on Kosmosnimki.Ru geoportal.