Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Iridium Communications Moves Toward Satellite-Based Air-Traffic Control

By ANDY PASZTOR 
The Wall Street Journal

Iridium Communications Inc. plans to install devices on its next fleet of commercial satellites to continuously monitor airliners and business jets on trans-Atlantic trips, an important step toward eventually replacing radar-based air-traffic control.

The satellite technology would supply more complete and continuous flight information to air-traffic controllers on the ground than radar or current bursts of data transmitted by planes on long flights over water or remote regions.

It also would also give greater flexibility to pilots, allowing them to get permission to fly closer to nearby aircraft and to change altitudes and routes more easily to conserve fuel and avoid storms.

Governments and industry officials on both sides of the Atlantic are pursuing initiatives to replace ground-based radar with a satellite-based system. Iridium's initiative is intended to help airlines quickly start achieving the economic and environmental benefits.

Today, pilots on long oceanic or polar routes typically rely on sometimes-unreliable radio transmissions to communicate with controllers on the ground.

Iridium expects Aireon, as its satellite-based effort is known, eventually to cover flights across the Pacific and remote polar regions as well, the company said Tuesday.

Nav Canada, the air-traffic-control organization that handles the bulk of Atlantic crossings, will begin using Iridium's satellites in five years or so. Nav Canada is part of a joint venture supported by the U.S. and involving Iridium and its corporate partners.

Iridium said it expects to receive about $200 million from Nav Canada and other air-traffic-control organizations for installing the devices on its satellites. It also anticipates receiving fees from air-traffic-control organizations and other customers using the system.

Iridium last year announced plans to improve in-flight communications by using links between a satellite to periodically transmit the position of aircraft. Now the McLean, Va., company and partners including Harris Corp. and ITT Exelis intend to move toward continuous, automated data transmissions to keep track of aircraft.

With about 1,200 daily flights, the North Atlantic is the world's busiest oceanic airspace. Iridium executives said they expect that major airlines, as well as air-traffic control agencies in Britain and elsewhere, eventually will participate. Iridium anticipates making similar arrangements for trans-Pacific flights. Total fuel savings could amount to more than $6 billion for airlines using the system through 2030, according to the company.

Iridium intends to install air-traffic control receivers as secondary, or, "hosted," payloads on all 66 satellites in its next fleet.

"This is a big milestone for commercially hosted payloads and a groundbreaking use" of Iridium's global reach, said Matt Desch, the company's chief executive.

Extensive satellite-based tracking systems are expected to be phased in for domestic U.S. flights around the end of the decade. But many airlines are balking at the investments required for such systems—even though the technology could help conserve fuel and reduce the environmental impact of flying.

Source:   http://online.wsj.com

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