MCLEAN, VA – Satcom company Iridium Communications this week announced Operation Arctic Lynx (OAL), which it says is “a series of partnership-driven field exercises deploying Iridium and Iridium Connected technologies and involving more than 20 organizations, primarily focused above 60 degrees north latitude and stretching as far as 82 degrees north latitude.”
Taking place between June 11 and June 26, 2021, OAL involves an international contingent of organizations including existing Iridium customers like the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. federal agencies, Alaska state and local organizations, Canadian government organizations, scientific research organizations and multiple aerospace industry companies.
The operation will see Iridium-connected weather resilient satellite communications technology deployed through “a combination of on-base, communications-on-the-move (COTM), at-the-halt (ATH) and remote environment applications,” says the press release.
Iridium, notes the company, remains the only commercial satellite communications company with truly global coverage and a 20-plus year pedigree of providing reliable Arctic communications.
As part of the operation, multiple voice, data and video real-time communications threads will be exercised both at-the-halt and on-the-move, starting from Utqiagvik, Alaska. Previously known as Barrow, Utqiagvik is located at 71 degrees north latitude, approximately 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and situated on the Arctic Ocean.
Among these communications threads will be a site located even farther north than Utqiagvik, at approximately 82 degrees north latitude – Canadian Forces Station Alert (CFS Alert), Nunavut, Canada. CFS Alert is the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world and one of a number of Arctic weather stations.
