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FAA NextGen Space-based Air Traffic Control Provider Search Responded to by ADS-Technologies

Globalstar launches six more satellites capable of supporting space based air traffic control

ADS-B Technologies (http://www.ads-b.com/) recently responded to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) market survey request to identify vendors whom could provide a space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) service for remote mountainous areas in the U.S. and oceanic regions starting in 2018.

These systems would augment the FAA's domestic ground-based ADS-B infrastructure, set to be operational as early as 2013 with full implementation in 2020.

The proposed ADS-B Technologies system would use the Globalstar (NASDAQ:GSAT) Second Generation Low Earth Orbit constellation and the company's proprietary ADS-B Link Augmentation System (ALAS) avionics interface to provide real-time aircraft position information to the FAA. The system has been designed to augment existing terrestrial systems by allowing aircraft to be precisely tracked by controllers in areas where conventional surveillance methods are either impossible or impractical to employ. In addition to FAA tracking, individual aircraft could be equipped to see each other and receive real time weather and airspace information from authorized sources on the ground.

On December 28, six more second-generation Globalstar satellites were successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, using the Soyuz launch vehicle. This was Globalstar's third successful multi-satellite launch in a little more than a year.

"This means that Globalstar is now three-quarters of the way toward its goal of launching 24 new high speed, high capacity satellites capable of supporting our NextGen space based air traffic management system," said Skip Nelson, president of ADS-B Technologies LLC. "It also means that we are on track for full scale operational testing by late 2014, should the FAA or any other civil aviation organization require it."

The unique combination of the ALAS avionics interface and Globalstar's relatively straightforward and reliable bent pipe architecture will allow virtually any 1090 MHz Extended Squitter (ES) or 978 Megahertz Universal Access Transceiver ADS-B source to report an aircraft's position to ATC in real-time (<400ms). An additional advantage of the Globalstar system is that all of the unique ADS-B components remain on the ground where repairs and upgrades are easily accomplished.

"Simplicity may be the key to establishing the kind of reliability that a safety-oriented business like air traffic control requires," Nelson said. "Globalstar's large number of ground stations means fewer and shorter hops between the satellite and the ATC point of service and thus fewer potential points of failure. This should also promote global harmonization since it also means that more nations will be able to land their own surveillance data inside their own borders with a standardized set of protocols."

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