Disaster communicationSpace Data, partners test high-altitude disaster communication
Since 2004, Space Data has logged more than 250,000 flight hours in near space altitudes between 65,000 and 90,000 feet in conducting more than 20,000 flights of its balloon-borne platforms; near space technology has become a critical communications relay capability for the U.S. military, particularly for deployed forces overseas; the FCC wants this technology to be available for first responders
Chandler, Arizona-based Space Data Corporation says it is collaborating with public safety equipment suppliers, including Oceus Networks, to provide input into the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Deployable Aerial Communications Architecture (DACA) Notice of Inquiry (NOI) proceeding. Space Data says it will combine its near space technologies with its partners’ technologies to demonstrate the ability to provide both broadband and narrowband public safety communications immediately following a natural or man-made disaster.
The company says that since 2004, it has logged more than 250,000 flight hours in near space altitudes between 65,000 and 90,000 feet in conducting more than 20,000 flights of its balloon-borne platforms. The company notes that this near space technology has become a critical communications relay capability for the U.S. military, particularly for deployed forces overseas.
To provide communications critical to first responders, Space Data and its partners will conduct demos in select locations across the United States. Beginning in July 2012, wide-area narrowband voice and data communications will be provided in Sacramento, California, and Bismarck, North Dakota, using standard public safety P25 communications operating from Space Data’s high altitude balloon platforms. This concept was successfully demonstrated to participants from the Texas
National Guard and U.S. Northern Command during the June 2011 Department of Defense-sponsored Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration conducted across western Texas.
In late summer 2012, the DACA-related near space efforts will transition to broadband demonstrations using the latest fourth-generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular protocol.
Space Data will combine its high altitude balloons with the Oceus Networks Xiphos base station to provide wide area coverage to mobile and portable LTE user devices in Arizona and near Boulder, Colorado. The latter location was chosen as part of the Public Safety Communications Research program being conducted jointly by the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and the National Telecommunications & Information Administration at the Department of Commerce laboratories in Boulder.
“In addition to the responsive nature of combining Space Data’s near space platforms with LTE and P25, these demonstrations will use 700 MHz spectrum recently set aside to expand public safety allocations for such modern communications technologies,” explained Jerry Knoblach, chairman and CEO of Space Data. In 2006 the U.S. Air Force awarded a $49 million contract to Space Data to deploy its technology across the military services.
On 24 May 2012, the FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry examining the role its DACA concept would have in facilitating emergency response by rapidly restoring communications capabilities in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic event. Technologies from Space Data, Oceus Networks, and its other partners show great promise in providing DACA solutions.
