27 Dec 2018 11:27

Emergency Situations Ministry to monitor all Russia from space after 2020 irrespective of weather

MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) - The Emergency Situations Ministry will get new satellites covering the entire territory of Russia after 2020, the agency press service told Interfax.

"Radar-satellites monitoring the Russian territory irrespective of weather will appear in the orbital group after 2020," the press service said.

The ministry and Roscosmos will put into operation two more ground stations in Dudinka and Anadyr by 2020.

For now, the ministry is operating ground stations in Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Vladivostok, and Vologda. There is also a station in Murmansk jointly operated with Roscosmos.

The ministry's space observation system helped respond to over 130 emergencies in 2018. It received and processed more than 2,000 space images during the year. The images were used in responding more than 115,000 thermal anomalies, including fires jeopardizing more than 15,000 populated localities.