IAEA launches satellite monitoring system

VIENNA, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency has launched a new satellite-based nuclear materials monitoring system to ensure the materials are properly secured.

The IAEA six-month pilot project, enacted with support from the European Space Agency, is a satellite system that monitors sites around the world where sensitive nuclear materials are stored. The system is designed to alert authorities if the sites that keep nuclear materials are breached and the materials are diverted for non-peaceful use.

The near real-time satellite-based monitoring network sites in Hungary, Brazil, Armenia and Ukraine will connect to the IAEA's headquarters facility in Vienna. Hungary is the first country in the network to go live with the monitoring system.

"We believe that satellite communications could provide the IAEA with additional infrastructure capability for its ever-expanding remote monitoring network," Pierluigi Mancini, head of the European Space Agency telecommunication future program and applications division, said in a statement.