This Space Radio Could Help Track Every Flight in Real Time

Researchers have developed a reconfigurable radio that could help air traffic controllers see in real-time the location of every plane in the air – even those flying across oceans.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

This Space Radio Could Help Track Every Flight in Real Time

Researchers have developed a reconfigurable radio that could help air traffic controllers see in real-time the location of every plane in the air – even those flying across oceans.

More…

Aircraft people on the forum take note.

“The company will use the radios to create the first space-based global air traffic control system.”

It’s amazing that this hasn’t been implemented before.

“ a constellation of 66 satellites, owned by Iridium Communications Inc., goes into orbit equipped with AppSTAR radios. The radios are programmed to receive signals from new airplane transceivers called ADS-B, which automatically send out a flight’s number, location, heading and other details.”

This is weird. Could there be two constellations of 66 satellites owned by the Iridium company? One launched 1997 to ?. One scheduled to start(?) launch in 2017-2018? Also, Iridium was “the largest bankruptcy in US history at the time. 1999.”

Looks like the answer is “no”. The present constellation of 66 satellites appears to be incomplete.

“Most of these satellites were launched in the late 1990s before the company went through bankruptcy. Since the bankruptcy, only seven additional satellites have been launched but an updated constellation of 66 satellites called Iridium NEXT is currently being developed and is planned for launch between 2015 and 2017 on SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicles from Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3 in California. … On January 14th 2017, SpaceX successfully launched 10 of the new Iridium satellites into orbit.”

So presumably the new aircraft tracking radio in onboard those ten satellites launched a fortnight ago?