Natural and man-made disasters entail a great number of victims and have a devastating effect upon the economies of many countries. Due to this fact, it is required to arrange at the ISS a permanent monitoring of the areas where natural and man-made disasters are forecasted, as well as prompt notifying public bodies and local authorities about unfavorable or disastrous development of events.
This experiment further develops a sequence of visual observations of the Earth surface started earlier at the Mir station. The ISS RS-based subsequent expeditions will build up an automatic observation system designed to watch the development of catastrophic events via electronic-optical equipment, which is on a par with the world standards set in its characteristics and provides round-the-clock monitoring capability. Initial classification and decoding of catastrophic event signs will be carried out by cosmonauts onboard the ISS RS using a dedicated software.
During conduct of a spaceborne experiment operational recording and downlink transmission of data on catastrophic event origination, development and scope are planned to be carried out.

URAGAN EXPERIMENT