Seeing a direct application of its satellite communications services, Iridium Satellite LLC of Virginia recently submitted a preliminary proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other appropriate government organizations for a real-time cockpit voice and flight data monitoring system. Using Iridium’s constellation of 66 low earth orbit satellites, the service would address national security concerns relating to aircraft safety and control, the company says.

"With existing systems, officials on the ground have only limited visibility into what is happening inside an aircraft in flight," said Dan Colussy, Iridium’s chairman and an aviation industry veteran. "Using its global footprint and voice and data capabilities, combined with existing commercially available equipment, Iridium gives ground personnel unrestricted access in real time to vital voice and data communications from the aircraft."

Since the in-flight recorder or black box resides in the aircraft and only retains data of the last 30 minutes of a flight, chiefly used for post-crash investigations, it is not able to intervene in the event of an in-flight emergency. With Iridium’s system, the voice and data signals captured by the black box would also be transmitted via existing FAA equipment to the Iridium satellite constellation and sent directly to FAA data centers.

According to the company, the Iridium system when coupled with other security enhancements currently under review could have a profound impact on aircraft safety.

Possible Scenarios.

• During a medical, terrorist or other in-flight emergency, the real-time system would let officials respond immediately.
• When flight parameters are breached, the service would initiate automatic monitoring from the ground or cockpit.
• In the case of minor in-flight maintenance problems, data would be relayed to the airline so that maintenance crews could be in place to service the aircraft upon landing.

Don Thoma, Iridium’s vice president, told WirelessNewsFactor that it would cost about $50,000 to outfit a single aircraft, and the installation could be done relatively quickly during routine maintenance.