Satellite operator Iridium Communications has entered into an agreement to acquire Aireon, which operates the world’s only space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) air traffic surveillance system.
Buying Aireon is a major step in Iridium’s strategy to provide the foundational architecture for global aviation safety, bringing space-based surveillance, safety communications, Positioning, Navigation & Tiiming (PNT), and operational data together on a single satellite network.
Iridium is already a major stakeholder in Aireon. Iridium will acquire the remaining 61 per cent it does not own for $366.7 million (€315.5m). It will pay 50 per cent of that sum at the cloning of the deal, and the remaining 50 per cent one year later. The deal should close in July.
The Aireon system, which is certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), flies as a payload on the Iridium satellite constellation and tracks an average of 190,000 flights per day. Commercial aircraft broadcast information such as an aircraft’s identity, location, altitude, speed, and heading. Aireon’s space-based ADS-B payload captures this information in real time, with 100 per cent global coverage. ANSPs covering more than 50 per cent of the global airspace rely on Aireon data to create safer and more efficient airspace, according to the company.
Some of the world’s leading in-flight ANSPs and investors in Aireon, including NAV Canada and NATS (United Kingdom), AirNav Ireland, ENAV (Italy), and Naviair (Denmark), each played a vital role in launching the Aireon service, proving its reliability, and establishing it as a critical part of the global air traffic control infrastructure. NAV Canada and NATS, which together manage the most heavily trafficked oceanic airspace in the world – the North Atlantic Tracks between Europe and North America, were the first to go live with the service. In connection with the acquisition, both ANSPs will sign extended data services agreements through 2035 and beyond, with provisions for continued cooperative development of space-based VHF communications and other new capabilities.
“Aireon has always been part of Iridium’s aviation safety strategy. We founded it in partnership with the world’s leading Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), because we believed space-based aviation safety was a generational opportunity,” commented Matt Desch, CEO at Iridium. “The aviation industry is now entering an era of growing air traffic, denser airspace, autonomous aircraft, and greater expectations for safety and resiliency. Bringing Aireon fully inside Iridium better positions us to build what’s needed to support the future of aviation, including more innovations like the future introduction of space-based VHF communications.”
