Russia to launch global satellite emergency response system in 2013

ST. PETERSBURG, January 9 (Itar-Tass) -- The Accident Response System
(Russian acronym: ERA GLONASS) may become operational nationwide in 2013.
The creation of the system began in 2009. It should become partly
operational in 2012 and start working at full capacity in 2013.
The system will be able to monitor the situation on the roads and
quickly respond to road accidents. It may even detect the smell of alcohol
in an automobile.
A total of 180 million roubles will be provided from the budget for
the system in 2010. The overall cost is about two billion roubles, of
which 511million roubles have been disbursed from the federal budget and
1.380 billion roubles from off-budget funds.
"This project, titled Accident Response System (Russian acronym: ERA
GLONASS), has big social importance and aims to reduce the death rate
during road accidents," Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov said earlier.
According to Perminov, 56 percent of people injured in road accidents
die because of untimely response of emergency services.
"If implemented, the following main results will be achieved: time of
response to road accidents by emergency services will decrease by 30
percent, the severity of injuries and casualties on the roads will be
reduced, budget expenditures for the road accident rehabilitation measures
will be but by about time and a half to two times," he said.
"ERA GLONASS is expected to begin to be introduced in the Russian road
transport sector from 2011," Perminov said.
The system will also ensure global control over and security of
hazardous and valuable cargoes, reduce the cost of navigation equipment
for end consumers by organising mass production of GLONASS receivers, and
improve the environmental situation by monitoring set parameters of
automobile engine operation.
It will also provide the basis for building intellectual transport
systems in regions, Perminov said.
He said 12 new GLONASS satellites would be launched before the end of
2010 to bring their total number in orbit to 24. In addition, three Gonets
satellites will be launched by the end of 2010 to increase it to 30
satellites.
For GLONASS signals to be received continuously across Russia, the
system needs at least 18 operating satellites, and 24 satellites for
global coverage.
Work is underway to modernise the system. The new GLONASS-M satellites
have better signal characteristics as well as a longer design life (7-8
years instead of the current 3 years). In the future, the system should
use low mass third generation GLONASS-K satellites with a guaranteed
lifespan of 10 years.

-0-zak/