IAA 3rd Conference on Earth Protection
Flagstaff, Arizona.
Consequence Management and Education
Lessons learned from regional and international disasters that provide insight into planetary protection
IGMASS — A PLANETARY KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE WITH NO LINGUISTIC, NATIONAL OR CULTURAL BOUNDARIES
Author: Malitikov E.M., Chairman, Interstate Committee for Knowledge and Adult Education of the CIS, President, International Association «Znanie», Academician, Professor
Sustainable development of modern civilization is hampered by a combination of natural and man-made hazards, which require effective preventive measures to prevent and protect against them. The most common sources of natural disasters are meteorological, climatic and tectonic phenomena: floods, hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, landslides… Forecasting their approach, warning about such phenomena and disasters, disasters and/or man-made emergencies they cause is in every way more advantageous than reacting to the subsequent destructive consequences.
The International Global Monitoring Aerospace System (IGMASS) is being established to provide timely warning to the global community of impending natural and man-made disasters and emergencies, using global and operational monitoring and forecasting capabilities of ground, air and space monitoring of all countries, further development and gradual integration of navigation, telecommunications and information resources of the world.
The purpose of IGMASS is the global and effective forecast of potentially dangerous situations on Earth and in outer space of natural and man-made origin through the integrated use of worldwide aerospace monitoring capacities. At that the following tasks will be performed using ground-based, airborne and space-based assets of the system
continuous and continuous space monitoring of the lithosphere, atmosphere and ionosphere of the Earth, near-Earth space in order to detect early signs of occurring dangerous natural and technogenic processes;
collection, primary processing onboard the spacecraft and transmission of monitoring data to ground stations for space data reception;
generalization and integrated processing of global monitoring data received from space-based, airborne and ground-based assets, its interpretation, storage and display at national, regional and international crisis centers
real-time communication of information on identified natural and man-made threats to the appropriate organizations of endangered nations, as well as to the UN specialized agencies
warning of global threats in space and from space: asteroid and meteoroid danger and anomalous phenomena of different nature
gradual formation of a single, planetary «security information space» in order to reduce global risks and parry emerging threats.
Given the problems, threats and risks, with the burden of which humanity enters the post-industrial phase of civilization development, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of major international projects, focused on the receipt and dissemination of information, which, turning into an economic and political category, determines all kinds of both national and planetary resources.