Russian ship monitoring system “Oculus” will be created by 2026

MOSCOW, 6 Oct — PRIME. By 2026, Russian developers intend to create the Oculus satellite monitoring system for the Arctic to predict the movement of ships along the Northern Sea Route. This was stated by the press service of the National Technology Initiative (NTI).

“Russian developers intend to create a system for round-the-clock satellite monitoring of the Arctic by 2026, which will ensure the safety of navigation and state borders,” Anton Alekseev, one of the developers of the project, told RIA Novosti.

It is noted that Oculus entered the top ideas of the forum of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and the Roscongress Foundation “Strong Ideas for the New Times”.

Alekseev stressed that the project for radar satellite monitoring of the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic zone was presented by the team of the New Space Aerospace Corporation.

The initiative will be scaling and creating a constellation of satellites for daily ice forecasting based on space images processed by specialized software.

According to him, the system will be able to provide operational data on the movement of ships and the current ice situation in the Arctic zone for making a forecast for several days.

“The availability of such data will help explain how to organize navigation of ships more efficiently and profitably for year-round use of the transport artery of the Northern Sea Route,” the developer explained.

The initiative includes a constellation of satellites weighing up to 450 kilograms each, with a software and hardware load. Experts estimate the cost of developing and launching the system at three billion rubles. Alekseev added that at the moment there are no similar systems in orbit in Russia.