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Spire Global solution enlightens dark shipping detection 

Dark ship detection solution is essential to identify and locate vessels suspected of unlawful activities, such as evading sanctions, illegal fishing and human trafficking 

Spire Global, Inc. , a global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, reveal a dark shipping detection solution to track vessels that manipulate their reported position in order to conceal nefarious activities.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) on a vessel helps avoid collisions at sea, track global shipping trends and monitor individual vessel activity — however, crew members on board can manipulate the system by turning off the transponder to go dark or ‘spoofing’ the AIS to report false positions. Typically this is done in order to hide activity that is illegal or could have negative consequences to the ship owner, such as illegal trading, loading or unloading sanctioned goods, or illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

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Spire’s near real-time, global geolocation position validation service can uncover suspicious activity and pinpoint a vessel without the need for an approximate location. The applications are critical to governments, intelligence and security agencies, and nonprofit organizations’ efforts to identify and locate vessels that are breaking international law. 

“For a long time, having the tools to accurately identify and track ships that are attempting to hide their activities or location has been the missing key to preventing sanctions evasion, illegal fishing, human trafficking and many more pressing societal issues,” said Peter Mabson, CEO, Spire Maritime. “Dark shipping detection builds on our breadth of maritime tracking solutions and underscores Spire’s mission to use data that can only be collected from space to improve life on Earth.”

Spire operates thelargest multipurpose constellation with more than 100 satellites. The company plans to launch additional products in 2023 for geolocation and identification of dark targets, at sea, on land, and in the air.

Platform Aerospace’s Record Success Onboard Vanilla UAV With SKYTRAC’s Iridium Certus Connectivity

… On September 24th, Platform Aerospace launched Vanilla Unmanned and recovered the UAV 8 days, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds later on October 2nd, breaking the FAI world record for unrefueled, internal combustion endurance of an unmanned aircraft.

SKYTRAC Systems Ltd. (SKYTRAC), provider of intelligent connectivity solutions for aviation, announced that Platform Aerospace, an industry provider in unmanned aircraft systems, used SKYTRAC’s Iridium Certus Satcom system, to enable Command and Control (C2), Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) communications, and telemetry streaming onboard their record-setting Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Vanilla Unmanned.

On September 24th, Platform Aerospace launched Vanilla Unmanned and recovered the UAV 8 days, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds later on October 2nd, breaking the FAI world record for unrefueled, internal combustion endurance of an unmanned aircraft. As a long endurance Group III Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) used for multi-day surveillance and inspection operations, this is a significant milestone for Vanilla Unmanned.

Vanilla Unmanned, contracted by NASA, successfully fielded the University of Kansas’ snow radar within the Arctic Circle to collect data on snow and ice thickness. Platform Aerospace selected and tested SKYTRAC’s Iridium Certus mid-band datalink, the DLS-100, to enable BVLOS Command and Control (C2) and telemetry capabilities for this mission.

“Maintaining aircraft C2 during BVLOS flight operations has been challenging since many datalink solutions are limited by range or geographic coverage,” mentions Dr. Dan Edwards, Chief Technology Officer at Platform Aerospace. “This flight in the Arctic demonstrated SKYTRAC’s global coverage, resiliency to extreme weather, and provided a low SWaP solution for connectivity onboard our ultra-long high endurance UAV missions.”

By leveraging Iridium’s global connectivity and low latency, the DLS-100 supported the polar mission by enabling pilots from Ground Control Stations (GCS) to have real-time C2 with the UAV while simultaneously sending commands and receiving flight telemetry that ensured safe BVLOS operations.

With this successful mission, SKYTRAC has supported the first UAV flight with Certus using the DLS-100 and has expanded the use cases of Platform Aerospace’s Vanilla Unmanned for geospatial surveying in polar or remote regions, minimizing the risk to human life during such operations.

“Congratulations to the Platform Aerospace team for their record-breaking flight,” mentions Jeff Sherwood, Director of Business Development at SKYTRAC. “We are proud that our solutions are being used to extend the boundaries of what is possible with UAVs.”

For more information on SKYTRAC’s products and services, please visit Booth B116 at European Rotors 2021 from November 16th to November 18th or contact [email protected] to speak with a technical expert.