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That looks awesome! Hopefully in the future they will indeed achieve global coverage, or at least cover the oceans to make it easier to find lost planes.

kylehotchkiss 10y ago
All we need to do next is not allow airplanes transponders to be turned off
- fallingmeat 10y ago
  ...or circuit breakers to be pulled, or any humans in the loop at all...
- yuubi 10y ago
  And design transponders so they never go wrong and need to be turned off, and electrical supplies that never need to be turned off, and electrical generators and transfer switches that never go wrong such that shedding the load of the transponder is useful in an emergency, and redesign the parts of the radar system that assume that pilots turn off their transponders when nearby.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    In 2001, Russia shot down civil plane approaching it border because of it transporder was turned off (then blamed Ukraine). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
    - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
      Did you link the correct flight? Because your link says something entirely different.
      - lisivka 10y ago
        Yep, it says entirely different because Russians are exceptionally good liars. But if you read court documents, then you will see that no hexogen is found at plane crash site, which is impossible for missile warhead made with 60% of hexogen. Moreover, military training was recorded on video, and this record was shown right after incident. 3 missiles was launched, 2 of them hit their targets, one missed. Third rocket blown up in the air by command from ground. Moment of blow up is visible on video.
      - lisivka 10y ago
        I had small battle in Wikipedia and won. Now page says correct information.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kuschku 10y ago
Well, "or at least cover the oceans to make it easier to find lost planes.", some airlines (especially Lufthansa) do have that already. They also provide in-flight internet even on flights over oceans via satellite. Most airlines just don't have it cause they are too cheap.
- nradov 10y ago
  That's easy enough for Lufthansa considering their routes. But there are still areas with no satellite Internet coverage available at any price.
  - ccrush 10y ago
    The price of launching a set of satellites that covers that area divided by the number of customers that will use it over the number of years that's in service? That's a price.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      The GOMX-3 (https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/g/gomx-3 https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missio...) is a pretty cost effective satellite. I bet you could put a dozen up as 'ridealongs' with one of the ISS resupply missions.
      - neurotech1 10y ago
        One issue is getting the different orbital planes covered. Its possible with an "upper stage" booster[0], but that is significantly more expensive than a typical CubeSat carrier/deployer[1] for the ride-along launches. As far as I know, there is no current smallsat/cubesat sized upper stage intended for changing orbital planes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_(rocket_stage) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_(rocket_stage) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoRacks_CubeSat_Deployer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoRacks_CubeSat_Deployer
  - kmskontorp 10y ago
RIMR 10y ago
Would it be wise to install different radio equipment on planes? Would it make more sense to use an up-ward facing directional antenna? Also, is ADS-B 1090Mhz really the most reliable way to send signals to a satellite?
- sandworm101 10y ago
  >> up-ward facing directional antenna? That would only add more limitations. The sat isn't always directly overhead. Directional limitations open up the possibility of random signal loss, such as when a plane is turning away from the sat. This would appear as a dropped signal until the sat came around again, perhaps an hour or more later. If this is to be used as a black box then handshakes need to be as reliable and regular as possible. Omnidirectional units (on the aircraft) are also cheaper and allow improvements to be made on the sat side of the equation without new hardware on the more expensive aircraft side.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Signal strength doesn't seem to be an issue anyway. A SPOT unit can transmit every five minutes for days on a set of AAA batteries, and that's going all the way out to geosync.

kylehotchkiss 10y ago

All we need to do next is not allow airplanes transponders to be turned off

fallingmeat 10y ago
...or circuit breakers to be pulled, or any humans in the loop at all...
yuubi 10y ago
And design transponders so they never go wrong and need to be turned off, and electrical supplies that never need to be turned off, and electrical generators and transfer switches that never go wrong such that shedding the load of the transponder is useful in an emergency, and redesign the parts of the radar system that assume that pilots turn off their transponders when nearby.
- lisivka 10y ago
  In 2001, Russia shot down civil plane approaching it border because of it transporder was turned off (then blamed Ukraine). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    Did you link the correct flight? Because your link says something entirely different.
    - lisivka 10y ago
      Yep, it says entirely different because Russians are exceptionally good liars. But if you read court documents, then you will see that no hexogen is found at plane crash site, which is impossible for missile warhead made with 60% of hexogen. Moreover, military training was recorded on video, and this record was shown right after incident. 3 missiles was launched, 2 of them hit their targets, one missed. Third rocket blown up in the air by command from ground. Moment of blow up is visible on video.
    - lisivka 10y ago
      I had small battle in Wikipedia and won. Now page says correct information.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kuschku 10y ago

Well, "or at least cover the oceans to make it easier to find lost planes.", some airlines (especially Lufthansa) do have that already. They also provide in-flight internet even on flights over oceans via satellite. Most airlines just don't have it cause they are too cheap.

nradov 10y ago
That's easy enough for Lufthansa considering their routes. But there are still areas with no satellite Internet coverage available at any price.
- ccrush 10y ago
  The price of launching a set of satellites that covers that area divided by the number of customers that will use it over the number of years that's in service? That's a price.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    The GOMX-3 (https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/g/gomx-3 https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missio...) is a pretty cost effective satellite. I bet you could put a dozen up as 'ridealongs' with one of the ISS resupply missions.
    - neurotech1 10y ago
      One issue is getting the different orbital planes covered. Its possible with an "upper stage" booster[0], but that is significantly more expensive than a typical CubeSat carrier/deployer[1] for the ride-along launches. As far as I know, there is no current smallsat/cubesat sized upper stage intended for changing orbital planes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_(rocket_stage) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_(rocket_stage) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoRacks_CubeSat_Deployer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoRacks_CubeSat_Deployer
- kmskontorp 10y ago

RIMR 10y ago

Would it be wise to install different radio equipment on planes? Would it make more sense to use an up-ward facing directional antenna? Also, is ADS-B 1090Mhz really the most reliable way to send signals to a satellite?

sandworm101 10y ago
>> up-ward facing directional antenna? That would only add more limitations. The sat isn't always directly overhead. Directional limitations open up the possibility of random signal loss, such as when a plane is turning away from the sat. This would appear as a dropped signal until the sat came around again, perhaps an hour or more later. If this is to be used as a black box then handshakes need to be as reliable and regular as possible. Omnidirectional units (on the aircraft) are also cheaper and allow improvements to be made on the sat side of the equation without new hardware on the more expensive aircraft side.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Signal strength doesn't seem to be an issue anyway. A SPOT unit can transmit every five minutes for days on a set of AAA batteries, and that's going all the way out to geosync.