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Coast Guard Explores Space-Based System for Maritime Awareness
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday said it is "strongly considering" increasing its use of space-based signals to better monitor coastal water activity. "The Coast Guard has been using space systems for communications, navigation and weather since they first became available, but our use of space may increase considerably in the next few years," Dana Goward, director of the Coast Guard's maritime domain awareness program, said in a release.
The agency has been studying the feasibility of receiving maritime automatic identification system signals from space since 2001. In 2004, the Coast Guard awarded a five-year contract worth up to about $9 million to Orbcomm Inc., a satellite communications company.
The Fort Lee, N.J.-based firm has been tasked with developing and building the capability to receive, process and forward the identification signals from space through a receiver on a communications satellite. Orbcomm also is providing the ground systems to process the signals and relay the collected messages to the Coast Guard.
The system was originally designed as a collision avoidance tool, but Coast Guard engineers and scientists determined it could be used for ship tracking far out to sea if a receiver were placed on a spacecraft, Goward said.
The Department of Defense last month proved its effectiveness with the launch of a satellite equipped with an automatic identification receiver, according to the Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard's Orbcomm satellite is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of this year, and the company plans to include the receivers in future satellites.
Shares of Orbcomm added 34 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $10.96 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, after earlier in the day surpassing its previous 52-week high of $10.93.