France: Astrium Services’ AirPatrol finished testing in Canada and is now “flight proven”. It commenced flight trials with the Canadian DND as part of the RIFL2E (Radar and Imaging for the Land/Littoral Environment) coastal surveillance project. AirPatrol is a military and secure satellite communications system, designed to target the growing market for high-resolution imagery transmission from UAVs, other fixed wing and rotary aircraft.
The system, developed by Astrium Services, has been qualified for operation in a robust airborne environment and is installed on board a Convair CV-580 aircraft. AirPatrol is now delivering exceptional broadband providing real time, high resolution imagery for Canadian coastal surveillance.
The RIFL2E project is designed to enhance coastal surveillance and support Canadian northern sovereignty. The AirPatrol terminal, together with Astrium Services’ Skynet X-band satellite capacity, will enable the DND to evaluate the operational capability of their airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) test platform.
Aidan Joy, Executive Director of Astrium Services’ Satcom Systems & Solutions, said, “This is a key milestone for our airborne satcom programme; we have achieved airborne qualification and airframe integration, and excellent results in early flight testing with the system achieving a transmission data rate of over 11 Mbps while accurately tracking the satellite via the beacon receiver.”
Source: Astrium
