Reports I N M A R S A T a satellite safety net for seafarers
with the largest investment shares and four others elected by the Assembly on the principle of a just geographical representation and with due regard for the interests of developing countries. The Council meets at least three times a year and each Signatory has a voting power equal to its investment share.
The International Maritime Satellite Organization's (INMARSAD success in operating the world's maritime satellite communications system has led to moves for it to expand its activities into other related areas. A vital role for INMARSA T in the Future Global Maritime Distress and Safety System has already been acknowledged and moves are currently being made to alter the organization's Convention to enable it to provide a range of aeronautical services. According to its Convention, INM A R S A T ' s purpose is 'to make provision for the space segment necessary for improving maritime communications, thereby assisting in improving distress and safety of life at sea communications, efficiency and management of ships, maritime public correspondence services and radiodetermination capabilities'. The Convention also says that I N M A R S A T shall act exclusively for peaceful purposes, that ships of all nations may use the space segment, and that it is open for membership by all states, By an agreement with the UK, I N M A R S A T ' s headquarters were established in London. Forty-one countries have now acceded to the INMARSAT Convention. These member countries have, in turn, designated Signatories, typically national telecommunications carriers, to sign the I N M A R S A T Operating Agreement. The Signatories finance the system by making capital contributions, or loans, in proportion to their respective investment shares, which are allocated on a percentage basis to correspond to the usage of the system by each country. The Signatories with the largest investment shares come from the U S A (30.7%), the UK (14.6%), Norway (11.6%), Japan (7%) and the USSR (6.9%). According to the Operating Agreement, I N M A R S A T should be a notfor-profit organization operating 'on a sound economic and financial basis, having regard to accepted commercial principles'. Surplus revenue, beyond that required to pay a reasonable return on capital to its investor Signa-
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The Directorate carries out the day-today activities of the Organization. The Director General is I N M A R S A T ' s chief executive officer.
tories, is to be recycled to stabilize or lower user charges. By the end of its first two years of operation, INMARSAT was already providing a return on investment to its Signatories, much earlier than originally forecast.
The INMARSATsystem The maritime satellite system has three major components: the satellite capacity leased by the organization, the coast earth stations and the ship earth stations (see Figure 1). The nerve centre of the system is the Operations Control Centre (OCC) at I N M A R S A T ' s headquarters. The OCC is connected directly by leased lines to the satellite control centres of the organizations from which satellite capacity is leased, by its own ship earth stations to the Atlantic and Indian Ocean satellites, and to all coast earth stations around the world. Operating 24 hours a day, it coordinates a wide range of activities. Should a serious problem arise with an oper-
Organization I N M A R S A T has a three-tier organizational structure:
The Assembly of Parties meets once every two years to review the activities and objectives of I N M A R S A T and to make recommendations to the Council. All member states are represented and have one vote each. The Council of Signatories is like a corporate board of directors; it is I N M A R S A T ' s policy making body. It consists of at least 22 Signatories: 18
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Figure 1. The INMARSAT system components.
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Reports ating satellite, putting it out of commission, the OCC would be responsible for taking the necessary steps to transfer traffic to an in-orbit spare. The OCC also arranges the commissioning of ship earth stations upon application by the shipowner.
M a r i t i m e satellites The I N M A R S A T satellites are in geostationary orbit, 36 000 km above the equator, over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and provide nearglobal coverage. There are both operational and back-up satellites, as shown in Table 1. The Marisat satellite, with a capacity of about 10 telephone channels, is leased from Comsat General. Comsat launched three Marisat satellites in 1976 - Flight 1 on 19 February, to provide coverage over the Atlantic Ocean, F2 on 9 June over the Indian Ocean and F3 on 14 October over the Pacific Ocean - to provide maritime communications, first for the US Navy, and later for civil applications. When I N M A R S A T began operations, it leased the satellite capacity of all three satellites. The Marecs A satellite, with a capacity of 48 telephone channels, is leased from the European Space Agency. It was launched on 20 December 1981 by Ariane and went into service over the Atlantic Ocean Region (AOR) in May 1982. INMARSAT also leases ESA's Marecs B2, which was launched in November 1984 and began service in early 1985. It became INMARSAT's operational satellite over the Pacific Ocean Region (POR). Several INTELSAT V satellites carry a maritime communications subsystem (MCS), each with a capacity of about 30 telephone channels. INM A R S A T has leased the MCSs on the 1NTELSAT V F-5, F-6 and F-7 satellites. The F-5 (MCS A) was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 September 1982, became ready for service on 19 January 1983 and is now the operational satellite for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR); the F ~ (MCS B), launched on 19 May 1983, became ready for service on 1 August 1983 and is now an in-orbit spare over the
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Table 1. Ocean Region Operational location
Atlantic
Indian
Pacific
MARECS A 26 W
INTELSAT MCS A 63 E
M A R E C SB2 177.5 E
Spare
INTELSAT MCS
INTELSAT MCS
MARISAT F3
AOR. The F-7 (MCS C) satellite was launched on 19 October 1983, became ready for service on 1 March 1984, and is now positioned over the IOR as a back-up satellite.
C o a s t e a r t h stations The coast earth stations provide the link between the satellites and the terrestrial telecommunications networks. The coast earth stations are owned and operated by national telecommunications carriers. A typical coast earth station (see Figure 2) consists of a parabolic antenna about 11-14 m in diameter, which is used for transmission of signals to the satellite at 6 GHz and for reception from the satellite at 4 GHz. The same antenna or another dedicated antenna is used for L-band transmission (at 1.6 GHz) and reception (at 1.5 GHz) of network control signals. Each coast earth station provides, as a minimum, telex and telephone services. As well, three coast earth stations - at Southbury (USA), and at Yamaguchi and Ibaraki (Japan) - serve as network coordina-
tion stations, which assign telephone channels, on demand, to ship earth stations and coast earth stations and monitor signals transmitted by these stations. Each coast earth station must comply with the technical requirements and approval procedures developed by INMARSAT. The communications equipment includes the telephone and telex modulators and demodulators, the access control equipment for setting up satellite circuits (including the out-of-band signalling to ship earth stations and to those coast earth stations which serve as network coordination stations), and the in-band signalling equipment for interworking with the terrestrial network. Currently, there are 13 INMARSAT coast earth stations in operation around the world. More are planned. By ocean region, their distribution is shown in Table 2. The additional coast earth stations will shorten the terrestrial part of the link between shore-side users and ships and should help to reduce the cost of calls.
Figure 2. A typical coast earth station.
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Ship earth stations For the shipboard user, the key to the maritime satellite system is the INMARSAT ship earth station, which allows instant contact with the rest of the world. Signals are transmitted to the satellite at 1.6 GHz and received at 1.5 GHz. So far, INMARSAT has developed one ship earth station standard, designated Standard-A. Ship earth stations consist of two parts, above-deck equipment and below-deck equipment. The abovedeck equipment includes a phased array or parabolic antenna, about 0.85 to 1.2 m in diameter, mounted on a platform, housed in a radome and stabilized, so that the antenna remains pointed at the satellite regardless of ship motion. The below-deck equipment consists of an antenna control unit, communications electronics, used for transmission, reception, access control and signalling, and telephone and telex equipment.
Services Virtually all of the telecommunications services on shore are available to ships equipped with ship earth stations. In addition to telephone and telex, the maritime satellite system provides capacity for these services:
Group calls. The current INMARSAT system includes a shore-to-ship group call facility whereby all ships, or those within one of 16 ocean areas or those with a common interest, eg of a particular fleet or national group, can receive a common telex message. Facilities exist for group calls to ships in a defined geographical region with each satellite coverage area, which can be used for broadcasting weather forecasts and storm warnings. An enhanced group call system is now being developed, which will enable group calls to any ocean area, down to areas as small as one degree by one degree in latitude and longitude. Information services. Several telecommunications administrations make available a variety of maritime information services which can be accessed by the ship earth station via a 320
Table 2. Coast earth stations. Atlantic Operational Southbury (US) Goonhilly (UK) Umm-aI-Aish (Kuwait) Pleumeur Bodou (France) Tangua (Brazil) Odessa (USSR) Fucino (Italy) Planned
Indian
Pacific
Yamaguchi (Japan) Eik (Norway) Odessa (USSR)
Santa Paula (US) Singapore Ibaraki (Japan)
Thermopylae (Greece)
Nakhodka (USSR)
two-digit code. The information services which can be accessed include medical advice, weather reports, navigational information, etc.
Data communications. With a standard modem, a ship earth station can transmit data at rates of up to 2400 bits per second using the telephone channel. In the ship-to-shore direction, high-slbeed data service at 56 kilobits per second is currently available through some coast earth stations to suitably equipped ships. The transmission of data at much higher speeds is becoming a requirement for many applications, particularly for the offshore oil and gas industry. In November 1983, INMARSAT announced that it would grant access to its system for very high speed data (VHSD) communications (up to about 1 megabit per second). Facsimile. With facsimile equipment linked to the ship earth station, the user can transmit or receive charts, diagrams and other pictorial or written information via the voice channel.
Slowscan television. Using a voice channel, the satellite system can be used to transmit live slowscan television pictures.
Leased circuits. Telephone circuits can be leased for one or two hours per day for periods as short as one month. The leased circuit will be between a designated ship earth station and shorebased location via a designated coast earth station.
Distress and FGMDSS When it comes to distress situations,
the reliability and instant access afforded by satellites make them an ideal medium. Each ship earth station has a special emergency button. When this is pressed an automatic distress alert is transmitted which is given priority access via the INMARSAT system. If all available satellite channels are engaged, one will be preempted so that the distress alert can be routed, usually automatically, to a rescue coordination centre ashore. By international agreement, Chapter Four of the 1974 Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention requires all passenger ships and cargo ships above 1600 tons to carry radiotelegraphy equipment. The Convention also requires all cargo ships above 300 tons to be fitted with radiotelephone, unless already fitted with radiotelegraph. Ships are required to keep a radio watch on one of the international distress frequencies (500 KHz for Morse radiotelegraphy and 2182 KHz for radio-telephony). The immediacy and reliability of INMARSAT communications have led some countries, including the USA, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, the Bahamas and Singapore, to permit carriage of the ship earth station under certain conditions as an alternative main transmitter on ships covered by the SOLAS Convention. Many more countries are expected to follow suit as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) prepares its new SOLAS requirements and its proposals for the Future Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (FGMDSS). The introduction of the FGMDSS in 1990 will probably bring about the greatest revolution in measures designed to improve safety at sea in
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Reports more than a decade. The IMO describes the FGMDSS as 'a comprehensive system to improve distress and safety communications and procedures which, in conjunction with a coordinated search and rescue infrastructure, will incorporate recent technical developments'. Under the FGMDSS, distress alerting could be achieved either by use of the ship earth station (which already has such a capability) or by means of a satellite Emergency PositionIndicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). The satellites EPIRB could be carried on a buoy, which would float free from a sinking ship and be automatically activated. The EPIRB could also be hand-held, for use on a life-raft, and be manually activated. Either way, the distress alert message would contain the ship's identification number, and perhaps its position and nature of distress. Once the message was received by a rescue coordination centre, a rescue mission would be carried out. The IMO is expected to specify standards for satellite EPIRBs in the near future and their carriage will probably be made mandatory by most nations by 1990. A n IMO subcommittee also recommended a draft transition plan for the FGMDSS which provides for administrations to encourage the fitting of ship earth stations. An IMO report says: 'The system will use both satellite and terrestrial communications. Satellite communications will be provided by INMARSAT. A distress capability for alerting by satellite EPIRB will be provided by I N M A R S A T geostationary satellites as well as polar orbiting satellites. Terrestrial communications will use frequencies in the MF, HF and VHF bands. Terrestrial communications will no longer use Morse code radiotelegraphy but will employ digital selective calling, radiotelephony and narrow band direct printing'. All equipment carried on ships will be designed for ease of operation and will be largely automated. Although most countries have some sort of search and rescue facilities for aiding ships at sea, these facilities vary and their effects are not coordinated
SPACE POLICY August 1985
on a global basis. The prime objective of the future system is to enable any properly equipped ship to transmit a distress alert automatically and to be located with minimum delay. The system would also provide for the establishment of rescue coordination centres (RCCs) where they do not exist and for a set of procedures for responding to distress alerts and carrying out rescue missions. Additionally, the system will permit the dissemination of relevant navigational and weather information to ships. Even in its present configuration, the I N M A R S A T system meets many requirements specified for the FGMDSS. For example, the current I N M A R S A T system enables RCCs to use the group calling facility to contact vessels within a particular navigational area. This facility is now being used by the Falmouth RCC via the Goonhilly coast earth station in the UK. I N M A R S A T has said that RCCs could be granted access to its system by land-based ship earth stations at the RCCs. In November 1983, the RCC at Puerto Belgrano, Argentina, became the first to be equipped with a ship earth station. In February 1984, the RCC at Varna, Bulgaria, became the second RCC to be so equipped. Others are expected to follow. I N M A R S A T could provide additional safety facilities, such as automatic ship-reporting at regular intervals. A ship polling system could be used so that shore authorities could obtain a ship's position information automatically. Many ship earth station manufacturers already offer an interface between navigation equipment and the ship earth station. Information relating to the ship's heading, speed and engine performance can be sent to or retrieved by authorized users on shore. In the specifications for future interfaces, it would be desirable to include other data which would be of use to the shipowner for effective management of the vessel. As far as institutional arrangements are concerned, an IMO subcommittee recommended in March 1984 that, 'it would be advisable that a single organization be responsible for all satellite systems required by the FGMDSS, including a satellite EPIRB system,
and that INMARSAT could be such an organization'. Although INMARSAT has a geostationary satellite system which can be used in FGMDSS, it does not operate a polar orbiting system at this time. COSPAS/SARSAT However, transponders for the relay of 406 MHz EPIRB signals are already being carried on polar-orbiting satellites used in the COSPAS/SARSAT system, a search and rescue system developed by Canada, the USA, France and the Soviet Union. The 406 MHz frequency band has been allocated specifically for low power emergency beacons. The COSPAS/ SARSAT satellites also operate in the international distress frequency bands of 121.5 and 243 MHz. The Soviet Union was the first to launch a satellite under this scheme, the Cosmos 1383, in June 1982. Two months after its launch, the satellite picked up signals transmitted from an aircraft which had crashed in northern British Columbia. By measuring the Doppler shift in the received signals, a rescue team was able to pinpoint the location of the aircraft. The speedy rescue which followed resulted in three lives being saved. Since then, two Cosmos satellites and a US N O A A satellite carrying similar payloads have been credited with saving nearly 300 lives. As the COSPAS/SARSAT satellites operate in a polar orbit about 1000 km above the Earth and while they can provide location information, the EPIRB transmission is not always picked up immediately. Depending upon the area of the globe, it could take two hours or more before one of the satellites passes over an EPIRB and picks up its signals. INMARSAT's satellites, however, are in geostationary orbit, providing near global coverage, so that an EPIRB signal could be detected immediately, but cannot provide location information unless this is part of the EPIRB transmission. The IMO has a requirement for immediate distress alerting. To meet this requirement, the polar-orbiting satellites operating at 406 MHz would need a geostationary complement. A
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MARSAT
Combination of Polar-orbiting & Geostationary Satellites
I RE~..,UE( Figure 3. Combination of polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites.
system which used both geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites would enable EPIRB signals to be detected virtually instantaneously by the geostationary satellites, with continuous position updates provided by the polar-orbiting satellites (see Figure 3). For its part, the IMO has said that it would like to-see a single international distress frequency for satellite emergency beacons. Consequently, in May 1984, INMARSAT sent letters to bidders for its new series of satellites, inquiring as to the feasibility of its new satellites carrying a 406 MHz transponder, which would be used for relaying distress alerts from satellite EPIRBs, on ships, small vessels, aircraft as well as by portable equipment carried by mountain climbers and others. Recent decisions by the INMARSAT Council, unable to obtain a firm requirement from IMO, mean that the first three satellites in INMARSAT's second generation space segment will not in fact carry 406 MHz transponders but the door remains open for subsequent satellites to carry such a package. As an alternative, frequencies in the existing L-band could be used for this purpose. Future
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polar-orbiting satellites could carry additional payloads as well; eg capabilities for navigation and thin-route communications. Funding for the COSPAS/SARSAT programme will enable it to continue until 1990. Member countries time to consider what sort of institutional structure should be established for managing this programme. Others as well as the IMO have suggested that
one option would be to have INMARSAT take over or manage the system, probably because INMARSAT has the right sort of institutional structure. While this is an interesting possibility - and INMARSAT is studying how a polar-orbiting system could be integrated with its geostationary system a means of financing such a system, equitably and in the long term, would have to be found. I N M A R S A T believes that, if it were asked to take over the management of a future COSPAS/SARSAT system - either under contract or as an integrated function - it would involve the addition of only a relatively small number of experts to its existing staff, whereas to set up a separate international organizational structure would require a staff of perhaps 100 or 150, possibly more. There are, thus, obvious economies that would flow from INMARSAT involvement. As well as economies in administration and operation, INMARSAT could also provide the international community with the needed assurances of system continuity and an opportunity for participation in the control of the system. All of which could prove to be compelling arguments for international policy makers.
O/of Lundberg Director Genera/ INMARSA T 40 Melton Street London NWl 2EQ, UK
I NTELSAT and the challenge of competitive systems If one accepts the overriding economic and social importance of telecommunications, then the importance of major shifts in international satellite policy becomes clear. In particular, proposals within the USA to redefine its relationship to the INTELSAT global satellite system take on broader significance than might be initially assumed. To understand why this is so, one must first focus on the role of INTELSA T and how it has changed the world of global telecommunications, at the national, regional and international levels. INTELSAT is an intergovernmental international organization, established under two international treaties. The
governments of 109 countries currently adhere to the INTELSAT Agreements, while 109 designated Signator-
SPACE POLICY August 1985