First in the World, Russia Creates an Arctic Monitoring System from Space

JAKARTA – The Russian space agency Roscosmos stated that the state commission had received the Arctic-M No. 1 satellite. 2 to operate. This makes Russia the first country in the world to create a space system to monitor the Arctic region.

“The state commission for flight tests of space complexes for socio-economic, scientific and commercial purposes reviewed the results of flight tests of the very high elliptical hydrometeorological space system Antartica-M with the Arctic-M spacecraft No. 2. Based on the results of the review, the commission “The country decided to complete testing with the commissioning of the Arctic-M No 2 spacecraft,” Roscosmos said in a statement reported by Sputnik, Monday (29/4/2024).

This innovative technology in the form of a space-based hydrometeorological system allows continuous observation of the Arctic region.

The Arctic region in the northern hemisphere is the smallest and shallowest ocean among the five oceans in the world. The Arctic Ocean is covered by ice all year round. However, this region has abundant resource reserves in the form of hydrocarbons, marine products and mining. This makes the Arctic Ocean an object of competition between countries in fighting for natural resources such as oil and gas.

The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic Ocean is the location that contains more than 30% of the world’s remaining natural gas resources. According to the USGS, 60% of the undiscovered oil in the Arctic Ocean is in territory belonging to Russia. According to Russia’s security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, the Arctic Ocean currently also supplies more than 90% of Russia’s demand for nickel, cobalt and platinum.

The arctic ocean borders the countries that fall within the arctic circle viz Russia , United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark. The climate change that is occurring has resulted in these countries having their own agendas for the region. There is an official agreement, namely the United Nations Convention on the Sea (UNCLOS) which was issued by the UN in 1982. UNCLOS regulates the boundaries of national waters and also the exploration of natural resources.

(msf)