Inmarsat and ESSP Partner for IRIS Program

Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, announced a cooperation agreement with ESSP (European Satellite Services Provider) to manage final testing, certification and integration for the Iris air traffic modernisation program, in preparation for the service’s commercial rollout across Europe by 2023.

ESSP, a pan-European aviation service provider, will focus primarily on technical and service delivery preparations for the Iris program’s upcoming deployment, including approvals from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

Iris has been developed by Inmarsat and the European Space Agency (ESA) to enable real-time collaboration between pilots, air traffic controllers and an airline’s operation centre using cost-effective, secure and highly resilient datalink communications. In addition to receiving digital information such as weather updates, this means aircraft can be pinpointed in four dimensions - latitude, longitude, altitude and time - using '4D trajectories’ to calculate the shortest available routes and optimum altitudes. This not only improves airspace usage to accommodate future growth, but also allows airlines across Europe to minimise delays, save fuel and reduce the environmental impact of their operations.

ESSP was founded in 2009 by seven leading Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK to operate and provide services for the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a satellite-based navigation system managed by the European Commission.

The Iris programme is powered by Inmarsat’s ELERA global satellite network, which delivers the world’s most reliable and flexible global connectivity, with full global redundancy and unique resilience in all conditions. ELERA capabilities will be enhanced further with the upcoming addition of Inmarsat-6 satellites, the largest and most sophisticated commercial communications satellites ever built, the first of which (I-6 F1) is scheduled to launch before the end of the year. The L-band capacity on each I-6 satellite will be substantially greater than Inmarsat’s 4th generation spacecraft and, among other enhancements, delivers 50% more capacity per beam in addition to unlimited beam routing flexibility.