ESA sees satellite-based air traffic monitoring on near horizon
- Reference: 1690367290
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/07/26/esa_awards_contract_for_demo/
- Source link:
[1]Spire Global , headquartered in San Francisco, won the €16 million ($17.6 million) agreement for the EURIALO project, which aims to prove that a satellite-based system can monitor aircraft in flight for air traffic management purposes, without relying on any existing systems.
The company already operates a constellation of nanosatellites that are used to observe the Earth in real time at radio frequencies, providing data to inform global weather intelligence, and ship and plane movements, according to Spire.
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The [3]EURIALO project intends to demonstrate the viability of using satellites to track aircraft by determining in real time the aircraft position based on timing the arrival of radio signals detected by multiple satellites, a technique known as multilateration. The radio signals in this case will be standard telecoms radio signals already routinely broadcast by aircraft.
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Current monitoring systems largely rely on self-reported positions of aircraft, which are typically obtained from satellite navigation systems. The objective of EURIALO is to provide a complementary tracking system that can feed location data to existing air navigation service providers for integration into their services.
Ultimately, this could help track planes in real time from takeoff to landing anywhere in the world and could more speedily locate aircraft in the event of an emergency. It isn't clear whether such a system would have helped in the infamous case of [6]Malaysia Airlines flight 370 , which went missing in 2014, as the aircraft's transponder was apparently switched off mid-flight, as was the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).
[7]UK university gets £5M to strap lasers to CubeSats
[8]Europe's Euclid telescope launches to figure out dark energy, the universe, and everything
[9]BepiColombo probe turns to the dark side … of Mercury
[10]Caltech claims to have beamed energy to Earth from satellite
Under the terms of the contract, Spire will develop a design for an operational satellite constellation then deploy and operate a demonstrator mission that proves the performance of the service. It will head up a consortium of other companies as part of the project, including European Satellite Services Provider (ESSP), which was founded by seven air navigation service providers and is based in Toulouse, France.
"We are honored to be selected by ESA to lead the development of this first-of-its-kind aviation surveillance system demonstrator," Spire Global CEO Peter Platzer said in a statement, adding: "Space-based aircraft tracking and geolocation is the future of air traffic management to ensure safe, secure and sustainable air travel at a global scale."
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The project framework is part of ESA's program of Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES), and is apparently chiefly funded through the German Space Agency.
"ESA has a long track record of supporting companies that use satellites to improve aviation safety, security and sustainability, ensuring European autonomy and improving the lives of European citizens by creating jobs and prosperity," said ESA acting director of Connectivity and Secure Communications Javier Benedicto. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://spire.com/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZMFDJlIkuHbgIaGndRPqigAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://esastar-publication-ext.sso.esa.int/ESATenderActions/details/56543
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZMFDJlIkuHbgIaGndRPqigAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZMFDJlIkuHbgIaGndRPqigAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/14/northumbria_uni_cubesat_lasers/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/01/euclid_dark_energy_telescope_launch/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/21/bepicolombo_third_mercury_flyby/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/satellite_energy_earth/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZMFDJlIkuHbgIaGndRPqigAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Is this a breach of ESA's rules ...
@UCAP
ESA is cooperating with the USA since a long time in fields like
Space science
Human spaceflight
Satellite navigation
Meteorology
Earth science/ Earth observation (other than meteorology)
Space exploration.
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Washington_Office/Cooperation_with_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency
Re: Is this a breach of ESA's rules ...
“Spire said it plans to open an office in Munich, Germany, as part of the contract after recently establishing a subsidiary in the country.”
https://spacenews.com/spire-to-devise-gnss-independent-aircraft-tracking-satellites-for-esa/
That’s how the game works!
Re: Is this a breach of ESA's rules ...
The also have a site in Glasgow and, while the UK has exited the EU, we are still participating in many ESA budgets so gets some pork return.
Re: Is this a breach of ESA's rules ...
ESA is independent of the EU, in fact it pre-dates it by a considerable margin. Brussels has tried a couple of times to take control of ESA (on the basis that it includes the word "European"), but has been firmly told to take a hike.
ESA funding rules are by and large simple to understand - the money a country gets out of an ESA programme is a function of how much money it puts into the programme. Hence the UK gets a lot out of some programmes, but is essentially blocked from bidding for contracts in other programmes (which it does not fund). Also all countries have to contribute something to ESA's general operational costs; I can't remember the formula for that.
I wonder what level ....
.... of accuracy that will be going for. Cos the accuracy will be determined by the accuracy of the clock fitted to the LEO satellite, as well as the accuracy of the satellite location.
This is pretty much GPS in reverse. Instead of one receiver receiving radio signals from multiple transmitters it is multiple receivers receiving transmissions from one transmitter. In both cases the quality of the clock in the satellite element will be a key component to the accuracy of the resulting calculated position.
You will still have the 'normal' GPS issue that Lat & Long will be far more accurate than altitude.
Re: I wonder what level ....t
If it were me, I wouldn’t receive the signal independently on the N satellites. I would have each satellite simply upconvert the signal by Nx”a smidge”, amplify and rebroadcast to its neighbours. A master satellite (which can be any of them) then sees all N copies of the signal at the same instant, absolute time becomes irrelevant. Then, no need for a super-high-accuracy atomic clock, because it only needs to calculate time *differences*. The signal can be defined spread spectrum, then as long as the shift is greater than maximum Doppler, there’s no confusion as to which copy was originally received at which satellite. You do still need high-accuracy orbital almanac.
Also: they do need to get the data back down from the constellation, which is difficult because there’s no single ground station that all the satellites are over. Therefore, laser intersatellite links. Not cheap, but it’s a solved problem. Or use EDRS-C on Hylas for backhaul. For the avoidance of doubt, yes that last option was a rather bitter joke.
Re: I wonder what level ....t
It is even simpler, you fit the satellite with a GPS-disciplined oscillator and time source, then it has the ability to measure Doppler and time-of-arrival of data to near-atomic master clock levels.
Send summary messages down of that using usual telemetry channels and somewhere else they can all be correlated and triangulated on the basis of the measurements.
What are they going to do when there is clouds?
Select the correct region for where the plane is to reduce latency.
The same as they do without clouds. This is a radio technology, exact inverse of GPS
Is this a breach of ESA's rules ...
As far as I recall, ESA are not supposed to directly award contracts to companies that are not based in one of its member states, particularly for contacts issued under the ARTES programme. Also, I am amazed that a the German government allowed a US company to win the contract when it is being largely funded by Germany - that bulk of that money should have gone to a German company (e.g. ADS GmBH) as prime contractor (they can then sub-contract, but that is a different matter). Seems like there is something else about this story that El Reg may have missed.