|
Please send me any Solent Area Shipping News - my e mail address is at very bottom of the page. Click the Help link at the bottom of the page for site navigation info. Items submitted by site visitors and third parties are posted in good faith and there is a chance they may not be correct. Don't forget to check the Message Board as there are often recent news snippets on there. You can leave your comments about shipping matters and ask questions there. You will find a link at the bottom of this page.
| « | < | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | |
 |
| AIS from space | Kongsberg Simrad announced a partnership with Norway to bring Automatic Identification System, AIS, ship tracking beyond its current line of sight (approximately 40 mile) range. With a target date of 2009 this capability will extend government and shipowner’s capabilities to manage ships in the region. Studies have been initiated by the Space Centre over the last year to investigate the prospects for building a Norwegian maritime ship tracking satellite. Last fall the Norwegian government issued a broad strategy for the high North where one recommendation is to pursue the space-based AIS initiative. Space-based AIS is now entering a new phase with the goal to develop a low cost satellite design for an experimental AIS satellite. A Canadian satellite platform design will be adjusted to carry the Norwegian AIS receiver. The platform will be designed and eventually manufactured and tested by the University of Toronto Space Flight Laboratory. Norway is not the first country to develop satellite based ship information and tracking. The Coast Guard has been studying the feasibility of receiving maritime automatic identification system (AIS) signals from space since 2001. In May 2004 the Coast Guard contracted with ORBCOMM, a satellite data communications company, to develop and build the capability to receive process and forward AIS signals from space via an AIS receiver onboard a communications satellite. In addition, ORBCOMM will provide the ground systems capable of processing the AIS signals and relaying the collected messages to the Coast Guard. Studies conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 2003 indicated this concept was feasible, but it was not proven until a Dec. 16, 2006, launch by the Department of Defense of the TACSAT-2 satellite, which was equipped with an automatic identification receiver. | 12/08/09 08:07 | |
| Click here for messageboard | Click here to e mail me | Help | |