Center of Space Monitoring of the Arctic Region was opened today on November 18 at the Institute of the Information & Space Technologies of the Northern Arctic Federal University.
The backbone of this center is the national technology of Earth observation data reception and processing “UniScan-36”, developed and manufactured by the ScanEx Research & Development Center.
The Institute of the Information & Space Technologies held a ceremonial opening of the Center of Space Monitoring of the Arctic Region. Chairman of the Arkhangelsk Region Assembly Vitaly Fortygin, General Director of ScanEx RDC Vladimir Gershenzon and Rector of the Northern Arctic Federal University (NARFU) Elena Kudryashova have cut the symbolic ribbon today.
– Opening of this Center is the significant event not only for the university and the Arkhangelsk Region as a whole, but for all Russia, – assures NARFU Rector Elena Kudryashova.
The idea of creating a Center of Space Monitoring of the Arctic Region at the NARFU was conceived a month ago. It took one month only to open the Center and to have it up and running.
According to the Director of the NARFU’s Center of Space Monitoring of the Arctic Region Sergei Koposov a wide range of tasks will be resolved based on this center, such as: improvement of education programs, scientific and research work, near real-time mode monitoring for the purposes of the national economy.
– Satellite imagery is sometimes the only source of unbiased and updated information about the condition of the territories, especially of such remote and hard-to-reach as the Russian Arctic, – highlighted General Director of ScanEx RDC Vladimir Gershenzon.
The UniScan receiving complex consists of the antenna system, installed on the roof of the 10th educational building of the NARFU, servers and a special package of software applications for reception, preliminary and in-depth processing of satellite images.
UniScan-36 complex was used to organize in Arkhangelsk a direct reception of satellite data from different remote sensing satellites: Terra/Aqua, EROS B, RADARSAT-1/-2, and SPOT 5. The operations with optical and radar images of different resolution ensure the possibility to carry out monitoring of the ice situation in water areas, to organize information support and optimization of ships navigation, to monitor the forestry, fishery, subsoil use, construction, etc. The footprint of the UniScan-36 station installed at the NARFU is 3500 km in radius.
As of today, centers of space monitoring have been created and have been functioning based on the UniScan technology at more than 15 higher education institutions of Russia. The possibilities of the Center established in Arkhangelsk are much higher than those of the similar centers due to operations with a great variety of Earth remote sensing data.
NARFU nowadays is the only university in Russia, where a UniScan-36 complex is installed. All other higher education institutions operate UniScan-24 complexes.
A special guest of the opening ceremony at the Center of Space monitoring of the Arctic Region was the Spot Image Sales Manager Bruno Bertolini (France). Spot Image company is the Operator of the SPOT 5 satellite, which data will be used in open access mode at NARFU.