MOSCOW. June 5 (Interfax-AVN) - The crisis situation center of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry will establish satellite communication with all its installations before the end of the year, Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said on Wednesday.
"Satellite communication will ensure round-the-clock monitoring of the industry's enterprises in all regular, extraordinary and crisis situations," Rumyantsev told Interfax- Military News Agency.
The ministry has established satellite communication with Europe and America. "We have a direct television video channel with the U.S. Department of Energy, satellite communication with the IAEA and a few other international organizations," the minister said.
Director of the center Lieutenant General Venedikt Berchik said the industry's information and communication system included 20 installations connected from satellite channels, 25 installations connected through ground digital channels and 23 installations connected through the general telephone network. When the system is established in full, a general information space of the Russian atomic energy industry will be set up.
The crisis situation center was established in October 1998. Its developers used the experience of crisis situation centers operating in the United States and France. The center's operations service is on duty 24 hours a day and maintains permanent communication with on-duty services of subordinate installations and with corresponding centers of the IAEA and foreign nations.
The center holds command post exercises in elimination of disaster consequences and prevention of terrorist acts at nuclear installations. Specialists of the center have taken part in exercises and training sessions that the IAEA held in Argentine, Great Britain, France, Sweden and Finland.