The increase in oil production in Russia in the nearest decade is attributed to the startup of the Bovanenkovo and Kharasavey deposits in the Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia and to the ensuring of secure gas transportation. The cost of pipeline construction amounts to 82% of all expenses. Within a large variety of issues connected with construction of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta pipeline system special attention is drawn to the issue of providing reliable operation of cold pipeline in everfrost soil. It is widely accepted that pumping of cold gas is efficient because of increase in volume of transportation and ensuring preservation of everfrost soil. On the other hand, year-round transportation of cold gas leads to steep increase of heaving in tabetisol transition areas (small rivers, swamps, lakes) and uneven heaving in zones of transition of different types of soil which differ in heaving intensity at freezing which may lead to a pipeline breakage.

The causes are examined for the reduction in bearing capacity and the increase in failure rate of pile foundations in permafrost soil north of the Arctic Circle. Methods of increasing or stabilizing the bearing capacity of pile supports using pile structural solutions and heat stabilizers having diverse action mechanisms.

The problem of ensuring operational stability of cold gas pipelines in permafrost stands out among the diverse problems encountered in the construction of gas-pipeline systems. Based on the Yamburg-Novyi Urengoi gas pipeline as an example, it is demonstrated that heaving of enclosing soils is the basic cause of the deformation and floating of pipelines. The influence exerted by the gas-temperature regime on heaving processes in frozen and frozen-through soils and gas-line deformation is examined.

Domestic and foreign experience with the laying of gas pipelines in permafrost is examined. The advantages and disadvantages of “chilled” and “heated pipelines are cited. Causes of the deformation of pipelines on permafrost are analyzed.

Nowadays in the frameworks of the Federal Space Program of Russia three hyperspec- tral satellite projects are being realized: a) "KVS" hyperspectral instrument designed for "Resurs-O1" spacecraft , b) project developed in the frameworks of the "Volcano" sys- tem is a small "Volcan-Limb" satellite having the hyperspectral channel, and the ultraspectral channel for diagnostics of the Earth Limb chemical kinetics, c) small hy- perspectral "Volcan-Astrogon" satellite, designed on the "Volcano" space platform base by NIIEM R&D Institute of Istra. This instrument having the spatial resolution up to 3 m with the spectral one of 1-2 nm comes out to be the unique device realized only due to the mono-photon technologies. The last project considered in details. The aviation prototype of the satellite hyperspectral channel was developed in 1998. The instrument has successfully passed all the test trials at the "Gasprom" trunks for a num- ber of years. Nowadays is the started joint work on the onboard supercomputer for prospective hyper- spectral apparatuses implemented by the united collective of enterprises of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Research Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (GMD FIRST) and DLR (Berlin).

A project of hyperspectral small satellite about 120 kg mass based on original native technology is presented in paper. The project is dedicated for JSC ``Gazprom'' pipelines searching to evaluate their condition, early recognize failures and make recommendations for preventive service. The satellite is planned to be able to provide 5 m resolution and 700 spectral lines in range of 0.3 1.6 _m. This paper consists of two main parts. The first one describes a small satellite, which is an enhanced version of microsatellite presented in [1]. To test the instruments and to check the ideas applied for development of a satellite-based hyperspectral unit, an airborne version of device was fabricated and used for North-located gas pipelines monitoring. The flight testing was successfully performed on August-September, 2000. In the second part of paper the results of airborne version of this hyperspectral instrument testing are presented. The measurements are analysed and used to state the reasons of small satellite characteristics choice. This small satellite project is being developed under support of JSC „Gazprom“ Program of Aerospace Monitoring and Space Program of Russian Aerospace Agency.