‘ScanEx’ Comes to International Standard

VLADIVOSTOK. January 26. VOSTOK-MEDIA - In the framework of the Fifth European Conference DGI 2009 (Geospatial Intelligence Conference), which will take place on January 19-22, 2009 in London, the Russian company ScanEx RDC announces two new outstanding initiatives on applying satellite methods in education and environmental protection.

From the standpoint of education the new joint proposal of ScanEx and the Israeli company ImageSat Int. is put forward for higher educational institutions of different countries: to supply UNISCAN stations capable of receiving satellite images, complete with annual license for reception of 100 scenes from the Israeli satellite EROS A (1.9 meter of spatial resolution). Therefore, this is the first time in the history of the world, staff and students of higher educational institutions will be able to receive at their own stations up-to-date data of near real-time imagery with spatial resolution that was early available only for the military and intelligence. This proposal represents the next step towards implementation of ScanEx RDC mission – expansion and streamlining of access to near real-time space imagery.

The new project in the framework of the ScanEx’s environmental protection activities reflects the joint initiative with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW): “Satellite Technologies for Protection of Harp Seal Pups in the White Sea”.

Uncontrolled vessel passage in early spring through ice floes that serve as “nursery” for seals is one of the reasons for their mass mortality in the White Sea. Per specialists’ estimation around 500 – 1000 seal pups die during each of these ice channeling operations. In spring 2009 ScanEx RDC in conjunction with IFAW will start the project on monitoring ship traffic and ice channeling across the seal “whelping” locations in the White Sea. In addition, the ice channeling operations completed in 2007 and 2008 are being documented based on the data received by IFAW on seal “whelping” locations from the archives of ScanEx RDC. Results of near real-time satellite monitoring in spring 2009 and data of 2007 and 2008 will be published on "Kosmosnimki" web site.

“We believe that the documentary records of unjustified killing of harp seals in the White Sea obtained through utilization of the state-of-the-art satellite technologies will help saving these helpless animals, – said Vice-President of ScanEx RDC Olga Gershenzon. — Protection of these animals is of vital importance. This is our contribution to the IFAW’s environmental campaign "Don’s Strike the Seals!”. We believe that having the good will it is possible to arrange ship traffic bypassing the whelping locations during several weeks in spring when baby seals can hardly move. I hope that space technologies will help."

"For fifteen years IFAW has been waging the campaign in Russia to protect baby harp seals from hunting and harmful anthropogenic impact. We are glad that starting this year we’ll be able to expand our capabilities in the effort of protecting the White Sea population with the support of such competent company as ScanEx. This will give people a chance to view the situation literally from space, provide the campaign with additional visual aids and arguments, and I believe will make significant contribution to the overall success”, said Maria Vorontsova, Director of the Russian IFAW Office.


Please ask for additional information at:

ScanEx booth at DGI - #33
In London: Olga Gershenzon +7-495-727-76-30, Anna Golovina +7-926-210-15-10
In Moscow: Vitaliy Ippolitov (receiving stations): +7-926-577-19-58, Oganes Targulyan (ecology): +7-909-915-57-46, Nadezhda Pupysheva (press-secretary) +7-962-916-05-00, pypisheva@mail.ru

Additional Information:

The DGI conferences are held annually and attended by heads of power and governmental structures of the world leading countries as well as by representatives of leading companies in the area of remote sensing, geoinformatics and web-mapping.

Prevention and response to international conflicts, enforcement of security and border control, studies on climate changes, monitoring of various emergencies and man-made disasters – this is by far not the complete list of issues to be addresses at the DGI 2009 conference.

Presently the universal receiving complexes UniScan as well as non-universal simplified complexes EOScan produced by ScanEx RDC are installed and functioning at 11 Russian universities, two universities in Kazakhstan and two universities in Spain.

The space monitoring centers installed at universities and based on UniScan complexes are capable of resolving the tasks in two directions:
— education — training and refresher training of specialists having up-to-date knowledge in the area of remote sensing and GIS, used in the systems supporting decision-making;
— region monitoring and supply of information to support decision-making.

The UniScan complex is supplied complete with the software, which allows successively tackling the issues of reception, preprocessing, archiving, cataloging and generation of thematic products followed by exporting those to the popular GIS and software complex formats.

Presently the most equipped and leading center in Russia is the center for receiving space data at Korolev Samara State Aerospace University, which was founded in December 2006 on the basis of ScanEx RDC’s technology – Povolzhye Space Geoinformatics Center. The center addresses urgent issues currently faced by the region: creation and updating of regional spatial data infrastructure (electronic base maps); performance of agri-industrial monitoring of the Samara Region lands; formation and updating of map databases of the state land cadastre and the Samara Region real estate cadastre, etc.

Three Samara Region ministries have already shown their interest in the new technical possibilities – the Ministries of Economic Development, of Agriculture and of Natural Resources. Space technology enables to do multi-temporal imaging of forest fires, to detect illegal oil pipeline tie-ins, to forecast crop yield and to create digital topographic and thematic maps. Nowadays the satellite-based imagery helps the regulatory agencies to reveal illegal house construction and logging. Starting in 2009 and armed with space images, employees of the Povolzhye Space Geoinformatics Center will be able to monitor new construction activities within water protection zone and detect other infringements of town development rules in the region.

ScanEx R&D Center company profile

ScanEx Research and Development Center (ScanEx R&D Center) is the leading Russian company on the remote sensing market that offers a complete set of services ranging from acquisition to thematic processing of Earth observation images from space. Today, ScanEx is the only Russian company that has signed license agreements with the top world remote sensing Operators for direct data acquisition from IRS, SPOT, EROS, RADARSAT and ENVISAT satellites series to UniScan™ ground stations, enabling regular near real-time monitoring of territories of Russia and the CIS countries with spatial resolution from hundreds to less than one meter.
ScanEx R&D Center has been operating as a private company since 1989. Incorporating the best achievements of Russian higher education and scientific schools, the experts at ScanEx offer modern and affordable solutions for real-time satellite image acquisition.
ScanEx has been building, maintaining and updating networks of receiving ground stations that belong to such Russian governmental agencies as Emergencies Ministry, Service of hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring (Roshydromet), Ministry of Natural Resources as well as regional space monitoring centers under educational and scientific institutions. Remote sensing centers in Spain, UAE, Vietnam, Iran, Nigeria and Kazakhstan are among the users of ScanEx technologies. Having signed license agreements with Earth observing missions operators, ScanEx is entitled to grant sub-licenses for data reception to UniScan™ ground stations owners within Russia and the CIS countries and to supply UniScan ground stations abroad.
Being the operator of a commercial network of UniScan™ ground stations in Russia, ScanEx provides the users with images acquired by IRS-P5 (CARTOSAT-1), IRS-P6 (Resourcesat-1), SPOT 2/4, EROS A, EROS B, RADARSAT-1, ENVISAT-1 satellites in real-time mode and out of its own archives. In 2008 R&D Center ScanEx obtained exclusive rights to distribution of data acquired by CARTOSAT-1 and Resourcesat-1 satellites within Russia.
On the basis of distribution and partner agreements with global operators of space programs ScanEx has been distributing high and super-high resolution images acquired by IKONOS, QuickBird, WorldView-1, KOMPSAT-2, FORMOSAT-2, TerraSAR-X and ALOS satellites.
ScanEx R&D Center is offering the generation of turn-key geoportals – the product of integration of the latest achievements in the Earth observation from Space, GIS and Web technologies and an efficient tool for territory management on the basis of the latest and continuously updated information about the Earth acquired from satellites.
ScanEx has always provided technically competent and financially feasible solutions for each of its clients and partners, whether commercial or non-commercial. The company serves a wide range of requests from an order of a satellite sub-scene up to establishment of the client’s own center for remote sensing data reception, archiving and processing.
With future in mind, ScanEx continuously designs and implements new technological and IT solutions: from universal small-aperture ground stations programmable for new Earth observing satellites to the state-of-the-art neural classification software for satellite image interpretation.