When commercial aircraft disappear from radar, it’s usually because they are flying over the ocean and out of sight of land. Under a new space-based tracking system, no plane would ever be off the grid that way. Thanks to a collaboration with NASA, radios that can be reprogrammed through software updates are now deployed in satellites that provide global coverage for flight tracking.
NASA uses powerful radios to communicate with its satellites, rovers, and astronauts. These devices allow us to see everything from pictures of cryovolcanoes on Pluto to tweets from the International Space Station. In recent years, the agency decided it needed radios that work on higher frequencies with more bandwidth, to make sending larger quantities of data back and forth faster, and that can be reprogrammed from a distance using software updates.
Learn more about how NASA helped develop technology that impacts worldwide flight tracking within your city's air travel environment!