AST, SRI Working to Provide Iridium Communications in Arctic

Iridium OpenPort. Photo: Iridium

[Via Satellite 02-04-2014] Applied Satellite Technology (AST) is working with SRI International (SRI) to provide Iridium communications throughout the Arctic.

Iridium OpenPort provides constant connectivity for safety of life proposes and tracking that is used on ice cap traverses, field stations and ice breakers, but can also be used in remote fixed sites.

SRI has also deployed Iridium OpenPort on U.S. Coast Guard ice breakers in order to provide communications at high latitudes, and also to retrieve ice coverage maps so the ship can avoid ice flows.

AST provides satellite IP traffic management and control services through its Point of Presence (PoP) service to ensure that unwanted traffic is filtered through a bespoke firewall.” said Erez Antebi, CEO of Gilat.