The changing shape of today’s vessels, with increased digitalisation and IoT, has made the requirement for extensive and high-powered communications a must-have rather than a nice-to-have for all maritime sectors in Scandinavia.

Offshore energy

The Norwegian offshore oil and gas sector is currently experiencing a new lease of life as the Ukrainian conflict leaves many countries facing energy shortages. When coupled with the rising number of offshore wind projects, we are looking at a flourishing industry with a growing need for connectivity.

These offshore energy sites are becoming more complex and much bigger with a need to comply with increasingly strict regulatory controls requiring intelligent and uncompromised communications to support the high levels of digitalisation now in use. Tracking, reporting and real time monitoring by staff, both onboard and onshore, place far greater demands on high-speed connectivity than previously but also ensure that the vessel suffers far less down time. The Internet of Things has enabled the transfer of information between sea and shore, allowing for remote upgrades to equipment and crew to be alerted of potentially hazardous conditions, meanwhile operational data can be collected offshore for analysis onshore.

Offshore support vessels

When considering the hard-to-reach nature of these sites and the harsh environments that they are operating in, it’s easy to appreciate that critical systems are not limited to the offshore facilities themselves but also to the myriad support vessels working with them, whether Offshore Supply Vessels, Crew Transfer Vessels or Floatels. They each place high demands on communications systems to ensure the smooth running of key operations such as navigation and weather forecasts.

Fishing

Another dynamic sector for Norway in particular is fishing. Vessels are in operation 24/7, often remaining at sea for a month or more, with crews working up to 12 hours a day. For those working in the Barents Sea or even further north, conditions are icy, dark, cold and windy. This is an area where it is extremely difficult for satellite companies to operate, in fact Telenor Satellite is one of the very few whose satellites are ideally situated to provide reliable and constant VSAT connectivity up to 79 degrees north. Again, there are strict regulations and mandatory reporting requirements which need to be transmitted back to shore but equally important is the safety and wellbeing of crew who need access to emergency assistance as well as links to home.

Expedition cruise

One of the fastest growing cruise sectors, expedition cruising is taking off in Scandinavia with well-travelled guests looking for more adventure. These are sophisticated passengers who take for granted that there will be good connectivity onboard. The complexity of these ships and the sheer quantity of people add to the requirement for communications links that can process large amounts of data both operationally and for the benefit of guests. Combine that with the more challenging environments of the Arctic and it’s easy to understand why high-quality connectivity is vital for this sector too.

This article was originally published by Ship Management International in issue no 102 March / April 2023.

It takes several years to ready a satellite for launch, and once the satellite detaches from the rocket that brought it out into space, the job is far from over. Space Norway’s two highly elliptical satellites will be launched by a Falcon 9 up to about ten thousand kilometers.

From there starts a long journey into space, ending at 43 thousand kilometers where it establishes its 15 years orbit. This journey is called orbit raising, and it is predicted to last for ten days. On board are two fuel tanks, and all around the body of the satellite are small thrusters used for correcting the course.

Approximately 90% of all the fuel will be used while orbit raising. To reach its correct trajectory, engineers must determine how much force to use for exact course adjustment. Flight dynamics is the art of calculating the effect of all the forces that work on the satellites and all the flight path corrections consequently needed in its entire life span. The remaining ten per cent of fuel on board is used to uphold an exact path for 15 years.

Connectivity has always been a key priority for the maritime mobility sector but today, as geopolitical events place new demands on the industry, the need for satellite communications companies to be both agile and reliable is more imperative than ever.

People have become much more used to having connectivity at their fingertips and expect it even when travelling in remote areas. Satellite companies need to demonstrate their innovation and resourcefulness to ensure their client’s evolving requirements can be met promptly and effectively.

We spoke with SatNews magazine about the challenges facing connectivity industry following the last few years of uncertainty, as we continue to see the effects from Covid-19, the global supply challenges and the current geopolitical situation.

Having largely emerged, at least in the west, from the COVID pandemic, it is clear that there are still residual effects from the disruption it caused. The disturbances to global supply chains remain and are something Telenor Satellite continues to experience.

Whereas in the past we would expect to receive a new router, for example, within the space of two to three weeks, today that can take anywhere from between six to nine months to get the unit delivered from the manufacturer or distributor. On top of that is the issue of price increases that also affects both data services and media broadcasting.

Read the entire article in SatMagazine’s September 2022 issue.

To any outside person, calculating which satellites will transmit when and where and on which frequency, without interfering with each other, would seem like an infernal game of pick-up sticks. Thousands of satellites orbit the globe at any given moment, transmitting to their ground stations. How to secure free transmission, without interfering with signals from all the other satellites?

In 2015, Space Norway decided to launch two highly elliptical satellites for polar orbit. A launch like this demands a lot of planning, time, money, bureaucracy – and a lot of computer calculation capacity. A planned launch means you notify on behalf of a state, not a company, your predicted frequency requirement. This notification is delivered via the national communications authority to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations’ body for space frequency coordination. Space Norway’s strategy was to make as many and high quality simulations as possible, in advance of the notification. This is a complicated strategy since the notification must be delivered many years before the program knows exactly what its customers will need.

When satellites transmit on frequencies close to another, interference is very likely. New satellites must know that its transmissions down to its ground stations will not interfere with existing patterns of transmission. Two causes are the most likely to create noise; one is other satellites and the other is the weather, especially rain. Any satellite operator must reach an agreement with other operators that their satellites will not create interference for the other’s signals. This issue is solved in many long meetings where the newcomer brings along simulations showing predicted interference.

The regulations system used by the ITU to allocate frequencies were made a long time ago, and it is designed for geo stationary satellites. Since the system was introduced, a lot more traffic has been added, and the technology used is much more advanced. Geo stationary satellites do not move across the horizon, they move with the same speed as the earth’s rotation allowing them to transmit directly down to their ground stations all the time. Satellites in polar orbit will continuously move towards or away from their ground stations, resulting in more interference, and that is much more complicated to calculate. Coordinating the frequencies between polar and geo stationary orbits is very complex.

When Space Norway started working with the frequencies for its HEOSAT program, there were no models for calculating interference for non geo stationary satellites. All modelling and simulation tools had to be developed from scratch. These computations are so complicated that most computers would kneel: To estimate interference, one must calculate how the signals will hit approximately every second. For accurate statistical purposes, you need to calculate every second for two days. Two days have 172,800 seconds, resulting in several tens of billions of computations to make accurate simulations.

Once this job is done, you need to reach an agreement with the other satellite operators. Agreeing that the calculations made are correct, is the first hurdle, and agreeing that the statistics are correct is the second. Then the hard part starts. The next stage is agreeing on how much interference actually poses a problem and how much noise you can live with. This exercise is done with all nearby operators.

As if this was not complicated enough, some nations demand that you apply for market access on their territory. This brings a new set of regulations that must be adhered to, combined with more long-lasting discussions. Frequency coordination is a never-ending task. New operators with plans for new satellites bringing new notices to the table is the status quo.

The ITU is not an enforcing agency, meaning they have no authority to decide how two operators agree on frequencies. This means that as long as we all have a common interest, the pieces normally fall into place. Not surprisingly, not all operators always play by the same rules, making it a time consuming exercise to reach agreements.