MURMANSK, October 29. /TASS/. Monitoring of ice conditions along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will be done from twelve small satellites, which the space agency, Roscosmos, makes jointly with the nuclear authority, Rosatom, Rosatom’s representative Maxim Kulinko said on Tuesday.
"We have been working with Roscosmos on a grouping of twelve small satellites, which will be used to monitor ice conditions," he said.
Earlier, the press service of Roselectronika (a part of Rostech) said the satellites will be a part of a complex system for satellite monitoring of the ice and meteorology conditions along the Northern Sea Route. The system will include a network of stations to receive, register and process information from space apparatuses and the Toros radio-meteorology centers, and a system of communication satellites, which will process data exchange within the system.
Presently, monitoring of the navigation conditions in the Arctic regions is done by various space apparatuses, but the satellites do not cover the entire Northern Sea Route and besides they report data in different formats.
The Northern Sea Route is a navigation route, the main marine communication in the Russian Arctic. It goes along Russia’s northern shores and across the Arctic Ocean’s seas. The route unites European and Russian Far Eastern ports, as well as Siberian rivers into one transport system. The route is 5,600 km long - from the Kara Strait to Providence Bay.