The next major U.S. government customer for a dedicated communications satellite may be the Federal Aviation Administration, in a move to both reduce costs as well as provide greater capability to the satellite-based navigation augmentation system currently under design. The FAA's Dr. George Donohue, Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisitions told SpaceCast last week moving from leased satellite services to a dedicated FAA-owned satellite constellation of six spacecraft could save the U.S. agency $50 million or more in annual costs for communications in support of the airspace navigation plan. The final decision to buy the satellites is still pending, Donohue said. But he added that in addition to such spacecraft, a fleet of Iridium-type satellite buses could also be used to provide a position-keeping space data link to the Global Positioning System navigation satellites whose signals will be used in part to guide future aircraft . Those smaller satellites would lessen total reliance on more expensive ground stations.
The satellite-augmented navigation system will eventually allow the GPS satellite signals to be used by any commercial aircraft in the world to navigate to its planned destination. The planes would use data routed from the satellites to ground processing stations and then up to the aircraft's pilots, via the proposed communication satellites. Donohue also told SpaceCast that any ground station operated in foreign countries for the FAA and the navigation program would be staffed by "international teams" to assure the navigation capability wouldn't be taken over for what he called "hostile purposes".
