Roskosmos, together with a private investor, is working on an updated digital model of the entire surface of the planet. The Digital Earth project should compete with Google Earth, Andrey Tyulin, General Director of the Russian Space Systems holding, told Izvestia.
“We are creating a tool to promote the capabilities of the Russian grouping in a very competitive market dominated by foreign players. We need to win back our positions,”said the head of the holding.
According to Tyulin, the project should compete with Google Earth Pro. “This is a paid version aimed at the interests of businesses or government agencies, here they compete with more serious global players, such as, for example, the global giant of geoservices Esri. We want to create an operator that could compete with them at least in the Russian market,”said the head of Russian Space Systems.
The head of the holding added that the project involves the creation of coverage with satellite images with a resolution of one meter of the entire territory of Russia, and later the whole world. In the "coming days" the coverage of the Crimea and the Rostov region should be completed, in 2018 it is planned to cover the territories of Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Khabarovsk and Primorsky regions. The coverage of all of Russia is planned to be completed by 2020.
“Today, more than 50 countries are investing in Earth remote sensing. The market is very competitive. No one can claim a monopoly. Our goal is not to overtake everyone, but to become a major player in Russia and occupy a significant part of the world market - no more, but no less,”said Tulin.