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Objectives
Inmarsat has completed a Technical Assistance Contract under Phase A of the Iris programme, where the European Space Agency (ESA) has embarked on the development of a new satellite to aircraft communication standard in support of both safety of life and aircraft operational communication. The purpose of Inmarsat’s involvement was to assist the Agency in determining suitable options to be further developed towards eventual validation and deployment.
The work was structured in five tasks:
- Analysis of the suitability of adopting current ATM standards to the 2020 scenario,
- Analysis of future Communication Standard candidate and worldwide application,
- Analysis of current and expected aeronautical services,
- Analysis of validation roadmap and possible use of existing space assets for the purpose,
- Analysis of the business case.
Challenges
- Production of a detailed report describing potential adaptation of Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband system to meet emerging Continental ATM requirements.
- Review of documentation developed by ESA and the main Iris Phase A consortia to providing reports summarising Inmarsat’s assessment. These activities included:
- Critical review of technical notes and reports provided by the two Communication System Design consortia.
- A critical review of ESA’s System Requirements Document (SRD) in order to provide feedback that would be used for updating this document for use in Phase B of the Iris Communication System Design study.
- A critical assessment of the ATM Service Provision and Business Case documentation provided by ESA.
- Inmarsat’s views on the evolution of demand for aeronautical services and how this is likely to affect the scenarios presented by SESAR.
Plan
- In Task 1 Inmarsat produced a detailed report on the potential adaptation of SwiftBroadband to meet the emerging ATM requirements, i.e. mandatory voice in the oceanic domain by 2013 and data link service for all domains by 2020.
- In Task 2 Inmarsat supported ESA by reviewing and commenting on technical notes and reports provided by the two Communication System Design consortia.
- In Task 3 Inmarsat assisted ESA in analysis of current and expected aeronautical services and requirements. The two main elements within this task are:
- A critical review of the SRD for use in Phase B of the Iris Communication System Design study.
- Views on the evolution of demand for aeronautical services and how this is likely to affect the scenarios presented by SESAR.
- In Task 4 Inmarsat was to provide provide a critical review of the feasibility of using present and future Inmarsat satellite systems for the purpose of validation and early deployment of a new ATM Communication standard.
- In Task 5 Inmarsat reviewed the Technical Notes of ESA’s Satcom for ATM study Service Provision and Business Case.
Current Status
This Phase A Technical Assistance contract has been completed.