ESA’s ArctiCOM to Evaluate Communication Needs in a Changing Arctic
18.11.2010 - Logistics, Atmosphere & Space, Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow, Arctic
As the retreating sea ice in the Arctic makes seasonal maritime transportation a more feasible option in the Arctic, ESA's Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) element 1 has initiated its ArctiCOM study to map the future demand and identify communication gaps in the Arctic for 2015 – 2020 and beyond.
With the Arctic attracting an increasing amount of interest from actors in fields including shipping, natural resource exploitation and tourism, there is a greater need for increased monitoring of the Arctic and proper communications. In order to better understand the needs to be addressed, the ArctiCOM provide and extensive inventory of the new services that will require satellite communications to support the wide variety of actors operating in the Arctic.
In an effort to fill the gaps in communications systems, a series of low-earth orbit satellite systems will be deployed to become operational by 2015. Initial findings of the study will be presented at the Arctic Shipping Summit 2011 to take place in April 2011 in Helsinki (Finland), with finalized results published by August 2011.
