The year 1994 witnessed the long-awaited debut of the Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite (GOMS) system of
Elektro spacecraft. Originally proposed for a maiden flight in 1978-1979, GOMS has suffered both technical and budgetary
problems. The objectives of the program, as stated in 1991, are as follows:

     * a to acquire, in real time, television images of the Earth surface and cloud within a radius of 60 degrees centered at the
     sub-satellite point in the visible and IR regions of the spectrum;
     * to measure temperature profiles of the [Earth surface (land and ocean) as well as cloud cover;
     * to measure radiation state and magnetic field of the space environment at the geostationary orbital altitude;
     * to transmit via digital radio channels television images, temperature and radiation and magnetrometric information to the
     Main and regional data receiving and processing centers;
     *to acquire the information from Soviet and international data collection platforms (DCPs), located in the GOMS radio
     visibility, and to transmit the obtained information to the main and regional data and processing centers;
     * to retransmit the processed meteorological data in the form of facsimile or alphanumerical information from the receiving
     and processing centers to the independent receiving stations via satellites;
     * to provide the exchange of high-speed digital data (retransmissions via the satellite) between the Main and regional
     centers of the USSR State Committee for Hydrometeorology;
     * to call for the data collection platforms to transmit the information to the satellite."