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Satellite Airliner Tracking Over Oceans Goes Global (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the satellite-surveillance dept.

dryriver shares a report from the BBC: Tracking airplanes anywhere in the world just got a lot easier. The U.S. firm Aireon says its new satellite surveillance network is now fully live and being trialled over the North Atlantic. The system employs a constellation of 66 (Iridium) spacecraft, which monitor the situational messages pumped out by aircraft transponders. These report a plane's position, altitude, direction and speed every eight seconds. The two big navigation management companies that marshal plane movements across the North Atlantic -- UK Nats and Nav Canada -- intend to use Aireon to transform their operations. The more detailed information they now have about the behavior of airplanes means more efficient routing can be introduced. This ought to reduce costs for airlines. Passengers should also experience fewer delays. Aireon has receivers riding piggyback on all 66 spacecraft of the Iridium sat-phone service provider. These sensors make it possible now to track planes even out over the ocean, beyond the visibility of radar -- and ocean waters cover 70% of the globe. The rapid-fire nature of the messaging also means aircraft visibility is virtually continuous. Existing data links only report ocean-crossing aircraft positions every 14 minutes. '

25 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. ships have almost real-time tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It seems ships have had a decent tracking system in place for a while now. See https://www.marinetraffic.com/ .. many update every 2 minutes.
    With planes I could track almost real-time a relative's long-haul flight. So something already exists for aircraft too. The change here must therefore be that the ping is wired-in mandatory and not subject to a pilot flipping the switch to off.

    1. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by r2kordmaa · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Any radio must have an hard off switch. What do you do when radio malfunctions and starts smoking or broadcasting gobbledygook all over the spectrum? That happens a lot more often than pilot maliciously turning transponder off and wanting to fly all sneaky like. By the way, if a pilot decides to suicide by crashing an airplane, then knowing where the plane is doesn't really help you, you still can't do squat about it.

      What this system provides is global coverage of ADS-B receivers, that's all.

    2. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I guess it's easier to have a nice big antenna on a ship. Aircraft need to consider aerodynamics and increased fuel consumption when attaching anything like that.

      If you can have a nice big antenna you can use lower frequency, longer range signals and avoid the need for expensive satellite comms. Or you could have fewer satellites to get the same coverage.

      I'm just guessing.

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    3. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      The change is that this used to be an upsell from the manufacturer. Upsells have a bad rap these days.

    4. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      They’ve had it as an option for planes for more than a decade but airlines had to buy it as a service. Airbus I think sold it as part of a maintenance package where the plane would not only send its location but any service faults so that maintenance crews could be alerted before the plane landed. Budget airlines would however never purchase such options.

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    5. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Budget airlines would however never purchase such options.

      It probably should have been made mandatory for flights involving many passengers some time ago.

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    6. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      But that’s regulation and good luck getting that passed. Also using satellite tracking involves having and deploying satellites which isn’t free. Costs are something like $20-30M per launch not including the cost of the satellite.

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    7. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      using satellite tracking involves having and deploying satellites which isnâ(TM)t free. Costs are something like $20-30M per launch not including the cost of the satellite.

      The US government has been keeping Iridium around for its own purposes, so it's been available for tasks just such as this all along.

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    8. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Are we talking about the same thing? Iridium is a private satellite collection originated from Motorola for satellite voice and data and not tracking. While you can use the satellites for this purpose, they use a different band than the current ADS-B. Somehow someone has to pay for dozens of satellites required.

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    9. Re:ships have almost real-time tracking by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Are we talking about the same thing? Iridium is a private satellite collection originated from Motorola for satellite voice and data and not tracking. While you can use the satellites for this purpose, they use a different band than the current ADS-B. Somehow someone has to pay for dozens of satellites required.

      Iridium is semi-public because they went bankrupt years ago and the DoD bought up a lot of the assets. They do have a commercial division and you can still get Iridium phones and pagers (and modems).

      Aireon is a commercial service that listens on ADS-B and is often called space-based ADS-B. They are being used by countries where the air traffic wouldn't overwhelm the satellites, like Canada for their ADS-B solution. (The US requires ground ADS-B as the traffic can be so high that satellites would be overloaded).

      The problem with a solution like Aireon is that it's space based, whil the US ADS-B is ground based. US planes are equipped with ADS-B antennas optimized for ground stations (i.e., they point down) Space based ADS-B requires antennas that point... up, and thus ADS-B transmitters and receivers need to operate in a diversity mode to be able to handle the multiple antenna banks needed.

      FYI, there are plenty of birds one can create global coverage with. You can even use the GlobalStar network, which powers the Spot satellite tracking system too and was once a competitor to Iridium. GPS satellites are constantly getting renewed and besides offering up GPS signals, because they're a global constellation, they have plenty of other sensors alongside the GPS transmitter, so they're monitoring and watching for a bunch of things too.

      There's also the worldwide network COSPAS-SARSAT which basically listen for emergency locator beacons at 405MHz.

  2. With the usual exemptions... by thesjaakspoiler · · Score: 2

    >US and European regulators have mandated all aircraft carry this equipment as of next year. Surely with the exception of all military planes, a bunch of CIA-owned planes and a bunch of private planes owned by the dark state puppet masters.

    1. Re:With the usual exemptions... by Freischutz · · Score: 1

      >US and European regulators have mandated all aircraft carry this equipment as of next year. Surely with the exception of all military planes, a bunch of CIA-owned planes and a bunch of private planes owned by the dark state puppet masters.

      Most of these military birds carry some sort of gear like this although the Russian recon birds sometimes turn it off and fly through the commercial air lanes just to ruin your day and royally piss everybody off. If you are worried about the 'gubbermint' and their grey alien overlords tracking you, you can try wrapping your plane in aluminium foil :-)

    2. Re:With the usual exemptions... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      You are talking about the transponder. That's not quite the same thing.

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  3. Another win for capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nav Canada was privatized by the Canadian government about 25 years ago and it's been hitting homeruns ever since.

    The US federal government could learn from this great example.

  4. Excellent. VERY much needed. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    "Satellite Airliner Tracking Over Oceans Goes Global"

    Excellent. VERY much needed. Not knowing where an aircraft was when it crashed was weird.

    Before: Airplanes can vanish without a trace. Why is effective tracking technology being ignored? (Nov. 2011)

    Plane Crash Info

    Why, after many, many years, flight recorders are still being destroyed? Both recorders from Boeing 737 recovered but 'partly destroyed', airline official says, as search for bodies continues. (Mar 11, 2019)

    1. Re:Excellent. VERY much needed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The thing is though, this is really only useful over open ocean (systems can already track them fine with ADS-B over land). And over open ocean, it can still take years for black box recovery (as was the case with Air France flight 447, where they knew the location, but a lot of water didn't help).
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

    2. Re:Excellent. VERY much needed. by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 3, Informative

      In principle, once you have the continuous communication anywhere in the world, you can program the transponders to start churning out black-box type telemetry whenever a dangerous anomalous condition is detected in the plane (e.g. stall, upset, fire.) So it is a somewhat separate issue, rather than a completely separate issue.

      Such emergency uploads aren't going to eliminate the need for black boxes: the bandwidth won't be available to transmit everything, and sometimes the vital clue is something that happened 30 minutes before the crash. (And sometimes the interval between detecting 'something is wrong' and total destruction is a few seconds.)

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  5. AI by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    When we get this for automated cars, self-driving may actually work! And they don't even need to cover the oceans!

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  6. Re:That was quick by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    They’ve had it in some form for over a decade but it was an option and not standard. It’s how they knew where Air France 447 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.

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  7. Re:That was quick by White+Yeti · · Score: 1

    I wonder if the new system will still have the "Turn Off Transponder" switch. Everyone likes options.

  8. Really? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    The satellites rely on planes transponders. The MH370 had its transponder disabled, and that network wouldn't have helped.

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  9. Re:That was quick by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2

    Everyone likes options.

    If I'm on a plane over the ocean and the transponder starts arcing and smoking I sure as hell want the cockpit to have the "option" to pull a breaker and kill electric power to it.

    The flight crew should have control over every system on an aircraft I'm on, full stop.

    It's no different from the fact that the cockpit can switch off all the engines if they deem it necessary.

  10. Often on Slashdot: Lack of social ability. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    I notice that people who comment on Slashdot often assume that they know more than someone else.

    Instead of asking how I would accomplish the loss of flight recorder data, the AC who replied in the parent comment assumes that he (or she) knows everything.

    Here are some ideas about avoiding the loss of flight recorder data:

    1) There should be perhaps 4 flight recorders, located in the airplane in different positions.

    2) There should be 2 more flight recorders that are ejected with parachutes when the pilots know the airplane will crash.

    3) Flight recorders should be coated with foam rubber that cushions crashes and causes floating. Yes, that would make the recorders much larger, but not as big as the space required for one passenger.

    4) Anyone who reads this: Please supply your own ideas for preserving flight recorder data. Please DON'T imply that you know everything, and that the problem is not solvable.

  11. MOD parent up. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    AC, that is so true, it makes me laugh.

  12. Re:That was quick by Megane · · Score: 1

    January 11 was four days ago?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Future_launches

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