• 'Ultimate cloud' comes to the rescue

    Iridium

    Iridium's constellation of telecom satellites covers the globe.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    Cloud computing isn't just for your music player anymore. The satellite-telecom company Iridium is working with partners on satellite-based systems that can uplink data on a regular basis to its orbiting "cloud" of 66 satellites, just in case a wayward airplane or hiker needs assistance in the remote regions of the world where cell phones and radios don't work.

    If such a system had been in place when an Air France jet crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, investigators might have been able to study near-real-time information about the plane's troubles, rather than waiting for the recovery of the jet's black boxes from the ocean bottom.

    "They wouldn't have had to spend two years and $40 million," said Matt Desch, Iridium's chief executive officer.

    But such systems can do more than untangle air disasters: As more and more companies rely on cloud computing, satellite communications can facilitate links to the Internet in wide regions of the world where there are no good alternatives.

    "The cloud is great," Desch told me, "but the cloud says that we have to depend on the Internet more and more. If the Internet is still on only 78 percent of the planet, where's the cloud when you're someplace else? Your device becomes useless. I look at us as the ultimate cloud, the space cloud, if you will."

    Technically speaking, Iridium and other satellite data services provide a pipeline rather than a cloud. They don't hold onto the streams of data coming up from users, but route it back down to data centers on Earth where thay can be stored and analyzed. But the idea is similar: to enable devices that can be connected to the global network under any circumstance. That may not be important for the playlist contained in a cloud database, such as Apple's iCloud, Sony's Music Unlimited, Google's Music Beta or the Amazon Cloud Player. But it's vital in the event of an emergency like the Air France crash.

    From black box to blue box
    Until the data and voice recorders from Air France Flight 447 surfaced, there wasn't much to go on. But if there had been something like the Flyht AFIRS UpTime system in place, investigators could have used satellite-transmitted data to reconstruct the conditions that led to the airliner's fatal plunge.

    "It's not a total replacement for the black box," said Richard Hayden, president of Canada-based AeroMechanical Services, which uses Flyht as a brand name. "Where it's going, I think, is to essentially change the entire manner in which aircraft are managed and interact with the team on the ground."

    Here's how UpTime works: Every few minutes, readings for the data parameters selected by the aircraft operator are uplinked  through a "blue box" that contains an Iridium satellite-data modem. The readings are downlinked to Iridium's ground stations, transmitted as encrypted data to the UpTime data servers, then sent to the appropriate operation centers. Flight data is also stored in the blue box's memory.

    If the software detects an anomaly aboard the airplane, data is streamed continuously through the satellite network. Pilots can also communicate with the ground over what's essentially an Iridium satellite-phone link.

    AMS/Flyht

    Flyht's AFIRS 220 "blue box" has an Iridium dual voice and data modem plus a quick-access data recorder.

    Hayden said the cost of the service works out to up to $15 an hour for the periodic data transfer, and $4 a minute for streaming data. "In a dire emergency, no one cares about the cost," Hayden told me.

    But UpTime isn't just for dire emergencies. The near-real-time data link provides more information in case pilots need some help from the ground. Hayden recalled one case in which the blue box detected an unusual trend in turbine vibration and notified ground maintenance personnel, who in turn called the crew on the Iridium phone and used additional blue-box data to troubleshoot the problem.

    "They determined a course of action that ultimately saved the engine from failure and allowed for the safe conclusion of the flight," Hayden said.

    The cost of installing Flyht's AFIRS blue box is comparable to the cost of the black box — about $40,000 to $60,000, Hayden said. That cost can be recovered in a matter of months due to more efficient operations, he said. "Its real value is increasing on-time performance and saving money on a daily basis," he said. "The emergency function comes along for the ride."

    Hayden said Flyht is taking care of 33 customers, which range from charter air companies such as North American Airlines to cargo operators and military operators. Some of the blue boxes were installed on planes flying U.N. World Food Program humanitarian missions, he said.

    "Our customers are on six continents," Hayden said.

    Hayden noted that data security requirements were higher for aircraft telemetry than they are for your music player. "There's a degree of privacy and security that's customary in aviation," he said. "We do in fact use the Internet as a medium for the distribution of information ... but it's important to note that the context for the access to and use of this information is perhaps different from what it would be for other applications of the cloud."

    Push the SOS button
    Iridium's Desch said Flyht's system is well-suited for real-time data transfer via satellite. "We can support, in a raw mode, about 2,400 baud, if you will — it's not much, but we're really talking about bits of information," he said.

    DeLorme

    An artist's conception shows how DeLorme's inReach app might work on an Android mobile phone.

    Satellite data services are finding their way into other, more down-to-earth devices as well. Maine-based DeLorme, a leading provider of mapping products and locator devices, will offer a two-way satellite communication system known as inReach starting in October. The system can be used to send and receive text messages via satellite when you're out of cellphone range, either through DeLorme's handheld inReach GPS device or in conjunction with Android mobile phones.

    DeLorme already makes GPS devices that can send text messages or an SOS via the SPOT/Globalstar satellite communication system. SPOT offers its own line of communicators as well, including SPOT Connect, which works with smartphones.  

    The typical scenario might involve suffering an injury while you're on a backcountry hike, beyond the reach of cellular networks. "Take your Android phone, push an SOS button and somebody will come save you," Desch said. Or if you're doing fine, you can send a message letting the folks back home know that. Or you can set the device to send out your coordinates on a periodic basis.

    "Think of it like a portable OnStar system that works anywhere on the planet," Desch said.

    The GPS device will retail for around $250, and messaging plans start at $9.95 a month. DeLorme said it's interested in supporting other mobile-device platforms, such as iOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry. This DeLorme blog item provides the details, and here's a follow-up item.

    Desch said there are more companies working on satellite-based data applications. And that's added on top of the traditional voice services that made Iridium famous in the first place. "Hurricane Katrina was an eye-opener for a lot of people. We were the only thing that worked for the first two or three weeks," he said. "Haiti was the same way, and Japan was the same way. Now it's Libya. That's a great reminder for the way our network can be used."

    In the years to come, new ventures may transform satellite communications from a service reserved for extraordinary circumstances into something as routine and unremarkable as cellphone service. And that's just fine with Desch.

    "We've been around 10 years and started out as a big, expensive satellite phone," he said. "But the real business we have today is to make these cost-effective Internet connections, wherever you are on the planet."

    Update for 10:15 a.m. ET June 21: With Hayden's help, I've reworded the tale of the turbine to clarify the sequence of events.

    More on satellite communications:

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  • Next stage ignites in the rocket biz

    Bruce Weaver / AFP - Getty Images

    SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket begins its successful maiden flight to orbit on June 4.

    You'd expect SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, to be happy about winning a $492 million contract from Iridium to launch 72 of its next-generation telecommunication satellites, in what he called "the biggest commercial launch deal in history."

    "We won a competition against the rest of the world," the rocket company's 38-year-old CEO said today during a teleconference with journalists.

    But Matt Desch, Iridium's CEO, sounds just as happy with the deal. "This is a totally new price point that hasn't been available in our industry," he told me. "I think in a couple of years this is going to look like the deal of the century."

    It's beginning to look as if the successful maiden flight of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, just 12 days ago, marked the debut of more than just a launch vehicle: It may represent a dramatic turning point for the whole rocket business. Here are three indicators from the past few days:

    • Congress has been skeptical about NASA's plan to give SpaceX and other commercial launch providers the lead role in resupplying the International Space Station after the shuttle fleet is retired - but in a letter sent to a colleague, influential Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., outlined a budget plan that acknowledges "we will soon turn to commercial space companies to deliver astronauts to the ISS." Nowhere in the letter does Nelson talk about having NASA resume its own Ares 1 rocket development program.

    • The Commercial Spaceflight Federation said Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, which has already put up two inflatable space modules and is planning to launch the world's first commercial space station within the next five years, was joining the group as an executive member. The company's billionaire founder, Robert Bigelow, said in today's statement that his company was working with the Boeing Co. to develop a crew capsule for NASA astronauts called the CST-100. Bigelow also gave a big shout-out to SpaceX: "The unprecedented success of the Falcon 9's inaugural launch clearly demonstrates that it's possible to dramatically reduce the cost of human spaceflight operations."

    • SpaceX announced that its Falcon 1e rocket - a less powerful, lower-cost variant of the Falcon 9 - would launch an Earth-observing satellite for Taiwan as early as 2013 from a Pacific launch site on Omelek Island in Kwajalein Atoll.

    SpaceX isn't the only company launching rockets these days, though one might think so based on the pace of announcements being made over the past 12 days. The California-based company is actually due to receive less money from NASA than another up-and-coming launch provider, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences, for delivering goods to the space station. And through their United Launch Alliance venture, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are still the heavyweights in the U.S. launch industry.

    But the introduction of a new player appears to be shaking up business as usual in the rocket biz. "SpaceX's Falcon 9 is the vehicle of choice, not just for NASA but for the commercial sector," Musk said. The Iridium deal means that more than half of the launches on SpaceX's schedule will be for commercial rather than government clients, he said.

    Exactly how many launches will Iridium need? Neither Musk nor Desch would say, citing concerns about professional courtesy (for Musk) or competitive factors (for Desch). Each launch would put multiple Iridium NEXT satellites into 485-mile-high (780-kilometer-high) near-polar orbits, replacing Iridium's current phone-and-data constellation. The Falcon 9 rockets would lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California between 2015 and 2017.

    SpaceX has said it offers fixed pricing of $49.5 to $56 million per Falcon 9 launch to low Earth orbit, which would work out to eight to 10 launches for Iridium. But Musk told me that financial formula might not necessarily hold true because of the multiple-satellite factor. How about nine launches with eight satellites each? "You're close," Desch told me, but not quite right. Hmm, maybe that's eight launches with nine satellites each?

    Iridium

    Iridium

    An artist's conception shows an Iridium NEXT satellite.

    The Iridium NEXT deal feels a bit like deja vu all over again. In the 1990s, space entrepreneurs assumed they would benefit from a satellite telecom boom. Iridium, plus Teledesic and Globalstar, were expected to require so many launches that new entrants would find an easy toehold in the launch market. But the market for satellite phone services wasn't as lucrative as the companies thought, in part because of the rapid deployment of cell phone networks. Iridium was forced into bankruptcy in 1999.

    Today, the restructured company is on solid financial footing, Desch said. "We focused on the 93 percent of the world that didn't have cell phone service," he told me. Iridium NEXT is the company's strategy for moving seamlessly from the current 72-satellite constellation to an upgraded voice-data network with lower rates and higher speeds.

    Desch said the three big pieces required for the $2.9 billion Iridium NEXT project are now in place: financing with credit guarantees from Coface, satellites from Thales Alenia Space, and launch reservations from SpaceX. Desch said the contracts with SpaceX were signed even before the Falcon 9 launch, and SpaceX already has received its first down payment on the deal. But every successful SpaceX launch will give Desch more confidence that he made the right decision. He's happy to be in the position of seeing SpaceX send 24 Falcon 9 rockets into space before it's Iridium's turn, and he was particularly happy to see the first Falcon hit a "bull's-eye" in orbit 12 days ago.

    "We were cheering louder than anyone else," Desch told me.

    More tidbits about SpaceX and the deal:

    • Iridium expects to enter into a contract with at least one more launch provider, but Musk said that was "more in the mode of a backup or a secondary." Desch said SpaceX could well end up launching all 72 of the Iridium NEXT satellites.

    • Musk said SpaceX has "already started work on Vandenberg from the standpoint of environmental assessment," and he expected the California launch site would be ready for use "probably two years from now," at a cost of $40 million to $50 million.

    • The Dragon test article that was put into orbit during the maiden Falcon 9 launch should stay up there for a year or two, and would then burn up during atmospheric re-entry, Musk said. A report in Space News hinted that SpaceX had a client for the first launch, but when I asked whether there was a classified project on board the spacecraft, Musk laughed and said, "I can neither confirm nor deny." Later, space journalist Irene Klotz asked again if there was any sort of client for the first launch. After a long pause, Musk said, "Uh, no."

    • Musk said his engineering team was looking into why the Falcon 9's upper stage went into a roll and has narrowed the problem down to "probably the actuator." He also said that the team wasn't certain why the first stage didn't survive re-entry, but he vowed to continue his drive toward full rocket reusability. "We will never give up. Never. Ever," he said.

    • The next Falcon 9 mission is supposed to test a functional Dragon capsule in orbit, during the first official demonstration flight for NASA. Musk said that launch would occur "toward the end of summer." Space News has quoted NASA's Valin Thorn as saying the flight would be in late August.

    • Musk declined to boil down the secret behind SpaceX's recent successes into a short sound bite - but he did say the company was striving to exemplify the "Silicon Valley operating system and DNA, as applied to space transport." Musk, who made his fortune in the dot-com industry, said he saw SpaceX as a departure from the rocket business as usual and "closer to an Intel, or Google, or Apple."

    Is SpaceX's approach silicon-smart, or just plain lucky? For more perspectives on the SpaceX-Iridium deal, check out Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News. And as always, feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

    Correction for 6 p.m. ET June 17: Orbital Sciences is based in Virginia, not Maryland. Sorry about getting that wrong...

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