Swedish Space Corporation has signed a contract with the government of India for delivery of three MSS 5000 Pollution Surveillance Systems along with spare parts, installation assistance and training. The systems will be installed onboard Dornier 228 aircraft (see above). The aircraft are produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) in Kanpur and will be operated by the Indian Coast Guard.
The Indian Coast Guard, who celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year, is responsible for protecting a coastline of over 7500 km and an Economic Zone of more than 2 million square km.
The Economic Zone is expected to expand further in the next few years and the Coast Guard is looking to expanding and modernising its fleet of vessels and aircraft to meet the increased responsibility.
The MSS 5000 is a new generation of the SSC Maritime Surveillance System.
The Maritime Surveillance System was originally designed by SSC for pollution surveillance at sea. With the MSS 5000 the scope of the system has been expanded to give a more effective operation for a multitude of sea surveillance tasks such as the monitoring of the Exclusive Economic Zone, fishery control and search-and-rescue in addition to the pollution control and environmental protection task.
The system concept includes a tight integration of SLAR, IR/UV, cameras and other sensors with a digital map database to give full and clear overview of the area under surveillance.
The MSS 5000 has increased SLAR coverage, real time geocorrection of sensor imagery, easy and flexible transfer of reports and imagery to headquarters or to a ground command post, to name a few of the improvements in the new system.
