Russian meteorologists presented the project of multi-purpose space system "Arctica", which is aimed at online monitoring of weather and ecology on Earth's poles.
      
      Seven satellites will soon travel to our planet's orbit. Control centres and data processing facilities will remain on the ground.
      
      Today in order to forecast weather, Russian meteorologists have to use data from American geostationary satellites, and ambitious project "Arctica" will eliminate the need in using foreign satellites.
      
      Arctic region is not good enough covered by international geostationary satellites, since the zone of quality monitoring is limited by slope angle of 70 degrees, which is equivalent to 60 degrees of latitude. Moreover, communication channels of existing geostationary satellites cannot provide quality reception of data, wrriving from Arctic drifting buoys and automatic hydrometeostations.
      
      Source: Science & Technology