In July, the Center of Space Monitoring of the Southern Federal University received Earth remote sensing data from the Russian medium resolution “Meteor-M” №1 satellite for the first time.
This long-awaited event was preceded by intensive work aimed at developing cooperation between the Federal Space Agency and the universities community, which has been consistently pursued by ScanEx Research & Development Center – the long-standing partner of the Southern Federal University in introduction of satellite monitoring technology into the scientific and educational process.
The accomplished breakthrough in resolving this issue is the result of the Roscosmos’s decision to grant universities of the country access to space-based information acquired from national remote sensing spacecrafts. The respective decision was taken on March 27, 2013 at the meeting in Lomonosov Moscow State University of the University Geoportals (UNIGEO) Consortium members.
Comprehensive work on testing and adaptation of Roscosmos products to the software of university receiving stations was also done by employees of ScanEx RDC, because the university space data receiving stations are equipped mainly with “UniScan” antenna complexes produced by ScanEx RDC.
Rector of the SFU Marina Borovskaya quickly signed three agreements: one with the Federal Space Agency to grant the right to use Earth remote sensing data, another with JSC “Russian Corporation of Rocket and Space Instrumentation and Information Systems” on the user maintenance of ground data reception stations, still another one to get the right to use signals decryption software. As a result, the SFU became the first of the UNIGEO Consortium members to receive information from the Russian “Meteor-M” № 1.
Currently, information from the “Meteor-M” № 1 spacecraft is received in a test mode by the Center of Space Monitoring of the Southern Federal University. The new source of remote sensing data of medium resolution (60 m) will certainly be useful in solving many problems of land use, environmental protection, monitoring of emergencies and tasks of other industries in the South of Russia.
