MOSCOW. Nov 23 (Interfax-AVN) - Chief of the Russian Federal Hydro-Meteorological Service Roman Vilfand hopes his agency will have its own satellites and other technologies in place in the coming years.
"Starting from 2008, a new group of satellites will appear in orbit - two geostationary probes [above the equator] and three polar-orbital satellites," Vilfand said at a news conference at Interfax's main office on Thursday.
At present, Russia has no meteorological satellites of its own and has been receiving meteorological data from other countries free of charge," he said.
Asked if there really weren't a single Russian weather satellite, Vilfand remarked skeptically: "There is one disabled 'meteor.'"
As to why weather-related space data has been provided by other countries, he explained that "if the United States, for example, has no data from Russian territory, it won't be able to make a precise weather forecast. The same goes for Russia. While forecasting weather in our own country, we must get information from adjoining territories."