LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Maritime tracking, management and surveillance technology firm SRT Marine Systems announced on Monday that it will build and launch its own maritime monitoring satellite constellation, called OCEAN-SCAN.
The AIM-traded company said the project would provide "enhanced" global vessel detection and tracking and a new recurring revenue source from maritime domain awareness (MDA) system project customers.

It said the OCEAN-SCAN system would initially comprise six low earth orbiting (LEO) satellites, operating in a combination of equatorial and polar orbits to provide global coverage, but with enhanced coverage of the equatorial and border regions due to the location of most current MDA system project opportunities.

SRT said it expected that additional satellites would be added in the future.

OCEAN-SCAN was currently expected to be fully operational in 2019, with the satellites enabling SRT to sell long-range vessel detection and tracking data to SRT MDA system customers and generate recurring revenue for SRT.

"Innovations in the satellite industry over the last decade have resulted in the development of small, low cost single purpose satellite system solutions which provide a proven and low cost turn-key platform into which sensor systems can be integrated," the SRT board explained in its statement.

"One of the leaders in this field is Clyde Space in Edinburgh and the Company has entered an initial agreement with Clyde Space who have a proven micro-satellite platform solution that is ideal for this application and can be utilised to quickly, reliably and cost effectively deliver the OCEAN-SCAN system within the required timescale."

The OCEAN-SCAN system would host a combination of sensor technologies, SRT explained, including automatic identification system (AIS) to enable accurate and reliable tracking of all types and sizes of vessels, with or without an identification transceiver.

It said the "fusion" of multiple sensor technologies on individual satellites was not found in the same combination on existing systems, and would enable accurate real time detection of illegal maritime activity as well as long-range reliable tracking of "even the smallest" fishing boat.

"This is a natural and major strategic initiative for SRT that will deliver significant benefits for authorities seeking to secure and manage their maritime domain, as well as a new and recurring revenue stream for SRT through the sale of data to our system project customers," said SRT Marine Systems CEO Simon Tucker.

"OCEAN-SCAN is fully funded via forecasted trading cash flow and further supported by our new working capital facility."

Tucker said that, subject to "the usual risks" associated with launching satellites, the board expected OCEAN-SCAN to be fully operational before the end of 2019.

"The new technologies and innovative system architecture of the OCEAN-SCAN satellite system, combined with our SAT-Trak vessel transceiver technology, and GeoVS intelligent monitoring and analytics system will deliver an unmatched level of fully integrated vessel tracking, identification and management capability to our customers."

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