Russian weather monitoring service to stop using data from Western satellites by year-end

VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME, Amur region. Feb 29 (Interfax) - Russia will completely stop using data from Western weather satellites by the end of 2024, head of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) Igor Shumakov said.

"Until a certain moment, we had close cooperation with Western colleagues, with the Eumetsat system that provided us with a fairly large amount of current data required for routine forecasts," Shumakov told reporters after the launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the Meteor M 2-4 weather satellite.

The dataflow from Western satellites has recently almost dried up, he said.

However, the lack of information has been essentially overcome thanks to Roscosmos, he said.

"Looking ahead a little, I think we will be able to completely stop using Eumetsat by the middle or the end of this year, given the plans to launch hydro-meteorological satellites," Shumakov said.

Meteor M 2-4 has unique equipment that allows it to see through clouds, monitor the seas and oceans including the Northern Sea Route, help forecast ice conditions, and carry out environmental tasks, he said.

The satellite was put into orbit by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome earlier on Thursday.