Both aircraft received voice notification of the approximate location of each other, however the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the crash was the failure of the 727 to maintain visual separation with other air traffic.

One of those killed in the crash is a friend of Dr. Gerard ("Jerry") O'Neill.

In September, Dr. O'Neill files a patent for a "Satellite-Based Vehicle Position Determining System." Called Triad, it is based on the use of three satellites to provide coverage to North America. It is eventually granted U.S. Patent 4,359,733 in 1982.

Spread spectrum is a term applied to communications systems that spread radio frequency energy over a wide bandwidth by means of an auxiliary spreading code. The spreading of the bandwidth can be accomplished in many different ways and the systems are usually classified by the type of spreading technique which they employ. They are commonly referred to as: direct sequence (or pseudonoise), frequency hopping, time hopping, pulsed FM (or chirp) and hybrid systems. The spreading or dilution of the energy in spread spectrum systems over a wide bandwidth results in several possible advantages: short range interference-free overlays on other emissions, resistance to interference from other emissions, and low detectability. While we do not anticipate that spread spectrum will replace other types of modulations, the unique characteristics of spread spectrum offer important options for the communications system designer.

Application is made to the FCC in April for a license to construct the Global Satellite System (GSS). The system called for three geosynchronous satellites, located at 70° W, 100° W, and 130° to cover the continental United States and adjoining waters. The application indicated GSS would be able to locate an individual $200 transceiver as well as carry short (36-character) messages.

Dr. O'Neill is interviewed for OMNI magazine.

The following What's News appeared in the September issue of Radio-Electronics magazine:

Satellite services for individuals?

Geostar Corp of Princeton, NJ, proposes a satellite-communications system that would permit persons to send messages via satellite, using devices no bigger than pocket pagers. The system will locate the exact position of the sender, and handle messages of up to 36 characters.

In its application to the FCC, Geostar states that a person confronted by a mugger could press a single button on his communicator. That would send out a signal that would go to three satellites in geostationary orbit over the Equator, and from them back to a computer on Earth. The computer would determine instantly the exact location of the sender by noting the difference in the time it takes for signals to reach the computer from the different satellites. It would then notify the nearest police car or station.

The system would also be valuable to hunters and others lost in the woods, and would be of great value to trucking companies, who would make large savings if they could determine the location of - and communicate with - their trucks at all times.

The proposal has not found favor in all quarters. The cellular radio services - some of whose alloted frequencies Geostar proposes to use - are particularly unhappy. AT&T and Motorola Inc., both of whom are heavily involved in cellular radio, have opposed plans of Geostar's type, stating that such systems would waste frequencies in serving remote areas; such frequencies could be used better in urban areas.

An article appeared in the September issue of Data Communications magazine:

CELLING A SATELLITE DATA NETWORK

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, NEV. - A new satellite-based digital network, scheduled to be operational by 1988, will permit anyone in North America with a $500 hand-held transceiver to send and receive textual messages and data to and from any other location - without requiring ground-based connection facilities or large external antennas. The relatively low-speed scheme is a sort of data version of existing analog cellular radio technology, but on a nationwide scale.

The project is the work of Dr. Gerard O'Neill, a longtime Princeton University physics professor who now heads Geostar Corporation in Princeton, N.J. O'Neill was granted an extensive patent by the U.S. Patent Office last year that, his colleagues say, covers 49 new technological claims. Many of these, relat ing to satellite communications, will reportedly make the scheme possible.

Airline locator. The Geostar project was undertaken to provide a new, reliable, and highly accurate means of determining the exact positions and altitudes of commercial airplanes. Their locations will be tracked and compiled by a large central computer, which will facilitate air traffic control and, presumably, all but eliminate the threat of mid-air collisions.

The plan calls for three satellites to be put in geostationary orbit and for a transceiver (transmitter/receiver) to be placed aboard the aircraft. The transceiver constantly listens for "interrogation" messages, sent via satellite from the central computer, and responds on a regular basis with a message that includes a unique identification character sequence.

The three satellites each receive the response and relay it to the ground-based computer, which, based on the propagation delays of the responses, triangulates the plane's longitude, latitude, and altitude. The calculated location, Geostar claims, will be accurate to within 50 feet.

Realizing that the scheme would also support locating mobile, ground-based targets - as well as two-way digital data communications from anywhere - Geostar went back to the drawing board and enlarged the scope of the plan. O'Neill says that plans are already under way by fleet owners and traffic managers to use the service to keep track of trucks and other ground vehicles.

Battery-powered. Geostar conducted a test here recently of its data transmission capability, using leased satellite transponder capacity from another carrier. Geostar does not expect its own three satellites to be launched until 1987. Field trials have reportedly established that the scheme works.

A portable data-entry terminal, transmitter, and power pack were employed in the tests. However, Geostar expects that by 1987 an integrated unit containing all of the components, including a miniscule two-inch dipole antenna for both receiving and transmitting, will be no larger than a carton of cigarettes. This unit, says Geostar, will be powered by a wristwatch battery. A great deal of power is not required to transmit to, or receive from, a satellite, but the Geostar plan represents a unique miniaturization of both antennas and power supplies. According to Geostar's Les Snively, the low-power requirement is sufficient for the way the transceivers operate.

The "duty cycle" of the transceiver - the time that the transmitter is actually working - is only 20 microseconds. In that period, the unit sends a 256-bit block of some 36 characters to the satellite. This is done in response to a received interrogation signal, broadcast to every location 100 times each second. How often the transceiver is programmed to send these digital blocks (from several times a second to perhaps only once every few minutes) determines both the effective data rate for the user and the amount of power required by the transceiver.

Even with a wristwatch battery, which Geostar acknowledges may be inadequate for extensive data transmissions or a sustained data rate of more than about a few hundred bits per second, a peak pulse power of 375 watts is achieved for the very short transmission burst. When not transmitting, the average amount of power used, says Snively, is "in the microwatt region." With a slightly stronger power supply, using a module that can readily be employed at home, in a car, or on a ship, a 300 bit/s data rate would be no problem, says Snively.

Half-duplex. Another breakthrough in the Geostar scheme is the small dipole antenna. The handheld unit will reportedly contain an antenna only two inches in length that will receive messages from the satellite, then transmit the data bursts. The antenna size is consistent with the network frequencies; the entire three-satellite network uses the same up-link frequency, a 16.5 MHz-wide band centered at 1.618 GHz, and the same down-link frequency, centered at 2.492 GHz.

The network operates digitally. Each up- and down-link supports an aggregate 12.5 Mbit/s, which is dynamically allocated to users in transmit time slots of 20 microseconds in duration. The control technique is basically time-division multiple-access (TDMA), which is a well-defined and long-employed method of handling access to a single satellite digital channel by a multitude of users. Geostar says that with this technique and the planned capacity, the three-satellite network will be able to support 100 million users.

To further increase the capacity of the network, "spot beams" will be employed, which make the setup similar to a giant cellular radio arrangement. The satellites send messages down to users in one of 15 geographically distinct beams, each of which covers an oval-shaped area of land of about 300 by 500 miles. These beams overlap a little, but they permit the satellite to use only valuable down-link transponder bandwidth in the spot beam area where the user is located.

Each spot beam transmits some 15,000 messages per second, for a total network down-link capacity of over 200,000 messages per second. The spot beams also permit transmission power to be focused, which is another reason why the tiny transceiver antennas will be able to receive transmissions that in other satellite networks without spot beams require dish antennas at least three feet in diameter.

Users will be able to enter a considerable amount of text or data into the transceiver's buffer memory, but transmission will not begin until the operator first identifies the destination station, then hits the transmit key. Since a single buffer will be employed, users will first have to send their entire message before they can receive a message.

Even so, logic in the transceiver works with the central computer to perform error-checking and acknowledge each burst of data. Forward error-checking is applied, but retransmission is invoked when errors are detected via a block-check algorithm.

Studying uses. Geostar says that priority for network data traffic will be given to the aviation industry. Even so, user text and message transmission is expected to represent the bulk of the service. An insider says the entire air traffic control application is expected to use only 2 percent of the network's capacity.

According to O'Neill, the capacity to transmit data over the same transceiver used in planes or trucks for positioning will still be there. He adds that airplane flight crews taxiing on runways might use the network, say, to send passenger or maintenance data to a central or regional computer site.

Geostar is said to have spent almost $2 million developing the scheme. O'Neill says that $200 million will ultimately be needed to build and launch the three satellites needed to make the network operational. He says he expects other manufacturers to mass-produce the message transceivers (including wall-size map displays for tracking and positioning), adding that operational and interface specifications will be made available for this purpose, probably on a license basis.

O'Neill and Geostar would naturally like the network to become the basis for a nationwide, ubiquitous, and inexpensive electronic mail service, and the firm is predicting prices that will likely be attractive to microcomputer users over, say, a phone line. The transceivers are expected to cost about $450 each, and the service is expected to be priced around $10 to $30 per month. O'Neill says that for data communications applications, this monthly service charge will likely be based on the volume of characters carried over the network.

Geostar acknowledges that data rates will be limited, due to the network's basic design, making the service attractive for short and interactive applications - especially from remote or mobile sites. But it will hardly be feasible for high-speed or bulk-data transmission. While the prices seem to be attractive, the biggest sales point will likely be the complete independence of the transmission scheme from the telephone company and associated connection and long-distance costs. Because the system will be satellite-based, transmitting across the country via Geostar should be no more expensive than transmitting across town. - Edwin E. Mier

In November Geostar demonstrates a prototype system in the Sierra mountains of California using mountaintop pseudolite repeaters.

An article appeared in the December issue of Data Communications magazine with the following abstract:

A new satellite data network using low speed analog cellular technology will allow users with hand-held transceivers to send and receive text or data from any location without ground-based connections. Aimed at tracking commercial airlines, this network will also be used in business for tracking a local auto or truck fleet. Message transceivers will cost $450. The monthly service charge will be $10 - $30 per month. The project has been developed by Dr. Gerard O'Neill, former physics professor at Princeton who now heads the Geostar Corp. Nearly $2 million have been spent in development; $200 million will be needed for the satellites.

In a Conressional appropriations hearing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the following exchange occurred between Mark Fowler, the Chairman of the FCC, and John Porter, a Congressman from Illinois:

Mr. Fowler. If I might, I was talking to the Chairman about a new area that absolutely fascinated me. I served a presentation the other day on a new technology called Geostar. It essentially involves putting three satellites up. You have a small unit which has a very small transceiver inside of it, and it costs, I think, about $100 ultimately. With this system you are able to send messages and receive messages to any person who subscribes to this. They can serve about 50 million people with this system in the United States, but because the signal goes up and is capable of being triangulated by the different locations of the three satellites, your location can be determined within three meters anywhere in the United States. So if you are lost in the forest, they will be able to locate you within three meters.

People who have fleets of trucks will be able to know exactly where their trucks are. The aviation industry is looking at this, be- cause if one of these is put in each plane, and by using a computer system and programs, the computer would be able to instanta- neously alert any plane, small or large, that was on a collision course with another airplane well in advance. This could, once and for all, eliminate the possibility of collisions.

It is an amazing system. I haven't looked at it to see whether it is as technically sound as they say it is, but apparently it has received a lot of good reviews. We will be looking at that. That is an example of something I wanted to mention this morning.

The only reason I do that is because this Committee, more than most, is always interested in some of the new stuff coming down the road, and I thought I would mention it to you.

Mr. Porter. You are probably in one of the most fascinating areas of the economy and of the government that exists, so we are always interested in these new ideas.
Thank you, Mr. Fowler.

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Mr. Porter.

In an interview with COMPUTE! magazine, the Geostar system is described as:

Despite his many other interests, it is the Geostar Corporation which currently occupies most of O'Neill's time and effort. Geostar, a development firm concerned with communication and navigation via satellite, is a perfect blend of O'Neill's farsighted vision and his make-it-work practicality.

The system which O'Neill and his colleagues are developing could revolutionize how we track and monitor aircraft and how we communicate with one another. Initially, the proposed system would have three satellites in geosynchronous orbit over North America. The Geostar central computer facility would use the satellites to route tracking and communication data almost instantaneously for everything from commercial airlines to trucking companies, taxi services, police departments, and even individuals. The key to the system will be a hand-held transceiver which can send and receive messages through the Geostar network.

During the interview, he remarked that an airplane thousands of feet above Princeton was in the process, at that moment, of testing the Geostar system.

The interview also contained the following exchanges:

COMPUTE!: There are predictions that by 1988 some 50 million homes in the U.S. will have personal computers. In what ways do you see this increased awareness of computers affecting America's technological edge in the world?

O'Neill: I think it will help a lot. It's already true, just because of the accident that we work on an alphabet and the Japanese work, of course, with a character-based system, that we as a people are far more familiar with keyboards than they are. Young Americans growing up nowadays, working with personal computers, are much more familiar with keyboards, much less scared of them, than the older generation.

Geostar is a digital system, a keyboard-type system. It's not a voice system. It could be connected to a personal computer anytime. The message transfer capability is entirely consistent with the kind of telecommunications that you like to carry out with your personal computer, from a portable computer. And, of course, by 1987, today's three or four pound computers that fit in a briefcase are probably going to be shrunk down to a quarter of an inch thick. You can carry those along with a Geostar transceiver, and be in instant touch with anywhere.

COMPUTE!: You have already completed mountaintop and airplane emulations of the Geostar satellite functions. What's the timetable for the actual satellite?

O'Neill: So far, the company has met all of its milestones. We are looking to begin service to the entire continental United States in 1987.

One of the most critical items for that is the issuance by the Federal Communications Commission of what's called a "notice of proposed rule-making," which would allocate the spectra for the Geostar service. And that is going very well. There's a very strong possibility that something important will have happened in that area even before your magazine comes out.

The development of the transceivers actually takes just about as long as the development time for the satellites themselves. It's a different kind of technical task, but the time scales are about the same.

COMPUTE!: What types of services will Geostar provide?

O'Neill: In aviation, the kinds of services that would be provided would be, for example, positioning, very accurately.on the order of meters. We can technically provide what's called radio location, which means feeding back the location of a vehicle or an aircraft to a fleet dispatch headquarters. We can provide for aircraft terrain avoidance, because we will have the stored terrain map. So if we see an aircraft heading toward a TV tower or a mountain, we will be feeding warnings to the pilot at the time.

There would be, of course, a two-way digital message service, all provided through the same device. And you could send a message from any transceiver to any other transceiver with a typical delay of about six-tenths of a second. And lastly, it is also an emergency warning system, because the ground station computer will be tracking aircraft. And if you see an aircraft which is heading toward a collision with terrain, first of all, you'll be sending warnings, automatically generated by the computer, and if the aircraft does crash, you will recognize the fact from several confirming sources. And that's important, because the so-called emergency locating transmitters (ELT) that are now federally mandated and carried by aircraft have a horrendous false alarm rate.approximately 98 percent of all ELT firings are false alarms.

COMPUTE!: How would Geostar have an impact on aviation?

O'Neill: The way that Geostar would affect aviation is sort of generically the same way that it would affect a number of other situations in life and affairs. The difference is that in aviation, all the needs come together in one place. The fundamental thing is that the Geostar transceiver is a very light, simple, inexpensive thing, which in effect can run on double-A cells. It's a goal which the manufacturers regard as not at all impossible.

In November, Geostar signs a Space System Development Agreement (SSDA) with NASA for satellite launch services.

In August the FCC officially completes the rule-making process for the RDSS frequencies. They grant three licenses -- one to Geostar, one to MCCA Radiodetermination Corporation, and one to McCaw Space Technologies, Inc.

In a 1986 issue of Customs USA, published by the Information Services Division of the U.S. Customs Service, the following report was made:

SATRACK - Was initially conceived in 1982 to determine if satellite tracking systems could be used in support of various Customs enforcement activities. The satellite system should provide position and tracking functions at a very minimum.

Three systems have since been identified that could meet Customs operational requirements. They are the Global Low Orbiting Message Relay (GLOMR) satellite now being operationally tested by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The second system is the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS), a multisatellite system being established by the Department of Defense as a very accurate position location system for mobile units. The third system is the GEOSTAR system.

Electronic Identification Tag (EIT) System - Since 1982 Customs has conducted experiments under project SATRACK to determine if satellite tracking (position location) systems could be used in support of Customs law enforcement activities. Customs requires a system which provides continuous coverage extending from the U.S./Canada border to northern South America, with tag position data updated in real time. ln 1986 Customs generated the performance specifications for the development of a miniaturized Electronic ldentification Tag (ElT) system which would operate with a geosynchronous satellite. A number of potential contractors were selected to compete in the contract bidding process.

From an Inmarsat News Release (NR86/32/2846B) dated November 27, 1986:

INMARSAT Grants Free Satellite Use For Geostar Experiments

Inmarsat will provide free capacity on one of its satellites to the US Geostar Corporation for tests and demonstrations of a land mobile position reporting and communication satellite service. The request for experimental capacity was received by Inmarsat from its US Signatory member organization, Comsat Corporation. The purpose of Geostar's proposed experimental programme is "to test the use of satellite communications for position reporting in the land mobile environment." The test and demonstration will be carried out with 30 vehicle terminals sharing a single L-band to C-band frequency channel in random access mode. The programme is expected to start about the end of 1986.

"Inmarsat's in-principle agreement to this request is in line with its long-standing policy of providing free access to its satellites for experiments which promise the possibility of expanding and improving mobile satellite communications technologies and applications," Inmarsat's Director General, Olof Lundberg, said. "This is in fact the 24th programme of this nature supported by Inmarsat." However, Mr. Lundberg emphasized that, since 1979, Inmarsat and its forerunner Marisat had provided services which had enabled both automatic position reporting via satellite from ships and other mobiles, and the interrogation of mobile position information from customer premises (polling). This service is now widely used by mobiles equipped with Inmarsat Standard-A communications terminals. "With the introduction in the next year or so of Inmarsat's new low-cost miniature Standard-C communications terminals, we expect the use of the Inmarsat system for this type of application to increase greatly," he said. "Next year, we shall also conduct experiments, using our satellite system, into position determination by ranging as well as another series of trials in support of other navigation systems."

Eight transportation companies trial more than 100 user terminals, including Mayflower Transit.

Geostar moves their corporate headquarters and processing center from Princeton, New Jersey to K Street in downtown Washington, D.C.

In the 53th Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1987, the Federal Communications Commission summarizes Radiodetermination Satellite Service activity thusly:

Following its 1985 allocation of frequencies for a Radiodetermination Satellite Service (RDSS), the Commission in 1986 authorized a system design that would permit multiple RDSS systems to operate simultaneously on the same frequencies to provide RDSS and ancillary non- voice message service, and authorized the three proposals before it that conformed to the adopted design. A fourth applicant subsequently amended its nonconforming proposal, and its application was granted in March 1987. While two of the licensees have decided not to proceed with their systems, one, Geostar Corporation, has begun to provide start-up service by placing RDSS packages on domestic fixed-satellites. RDSS packages were authorized to be added to several GTE Spacenet satellites for Geostar in 1987.

Geostar begins commercial operation using Spacenet-3, with the capability of serving upwards of 40,000 users. (This was known internally as System 2.)

Users transmit a direct-sequence spread spectrum burst at 1618.25 MHz. The burst has an 8 MHz chip rate and a 15.6 kHz data rate. User terminals transmit their position, derived from an on-board LORAN-C receiver, to Geostar Central for delivery to the customer.

A return link at 2491.75 MHz is in the planning stages, but for now the Geostar service is one-way only.

Geostar acquires an 11.5 percent stake in Locstar, a consortium made up of European companies and government entities including British Aerospace and Alcatel. The consortium plans to provide RDSS in Europe, the Mideast and North Africa.

European patent EP 0174540 is granted to Geostar Corporation.

In November, San Diego-based Qualcomm, Inc. begins offering their two-way OmniTRACS mobile communications service via Ku-band satellite (two transponders on-board GSTAR-1). Qualcomm had purchased a smaller company called Omninet that had developed the system. The FCC granted Qualcomm an STA (Special Temporary Authority) in September for 2,000 terminals.

A space industry survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce forecast worldwide annual revenues from RDSS systems were expected to reach $150 million to $200 million by 1992, and total $1 billion or more in 1995. Part of the increase in revenues is attributed to production economies of scale for RDSS terminals, with user equipment declining in price from about $4000 to less than $500. These estimates were obtained from suppliers and were not independent government forecasts.

The Geostar forecast indicates costs declining from $3,000 for first generation terminals to less than $500 in mass production.

In the 54th Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1988, the Federal Communications Commission summarizes Radiodetermination Satellite Service activity thusly:

Following its 1985 allocation of frequencies for a Radiodetermination Satellite Service (RDSS), the Commission in 1986 authorized a system design that would permit multiple RDSS systems to operate simultaneously on the same frequencies to provide RDSS and ancillary non-voice message service, and authorized the three proposals before it that conformed to the adopted design. A fourth applicant subsequently amended its nonconforming proposal, and its application was granted in March 1987. While two of the licensees have decided not to proceed with their systems, one, Geostar Corporation, has begun to provide start-up service by placing RDSS packages on domestic fixed-satellites. RDSS packages were authorized to be added to several GTE Spacenet satellites for Geostar in 1987 and 1988. Although it has experienced some technical difficulties, Geostar is currently providing start-up RDSS service to customers using the Spacenet III satellite launched in March 1988.

In October Geostar begins offering two-way service by transmitting an "outbound" signal (from the central hub out to mobile terminals) between 3700 and 4200 MHz (C-band). (This was known internally as System 2C.) Although the C-band frequencies were originally allocated for Fixed Satellite Service (FSS), the FCC allowed mobile operation in the band due to a lack of S-band satellite capacity in the allocated RDSS band (2483.5 to 2500 MHz).

Equipment is built by Hughes Network Systems (L-band transmitter), Kenwood Corporation (C-band receiver) and Sony Corporation (L-band transmitter).

A contemporaneous description of the planned Geostar positioning service is described thusly:

In the RDSS system, a continuous outbound signal is transmitted to provide time reference marks and an outbound time division multiplex data stream. To determine the position of a mobile unit, the mobile unit retransmits one of the time reference marks, adding its unique identification code, through two or more geosynchronous RDSS satellites. The position of the mobile unit is calculated at the central earth station from the round trip propagation times through three satellites, or by the round trip propagation times through two satellites and altitude information obtained from a digitized terrain map or on-board altimeter. The relative positioning accuracy of the RDSS system is less than ten meters and the absolute ranging accuracy is under fifty meters.

In the 55th Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1989, the Federal Communications Commission summarizes Radiodetermination Satellite Service activity thusly:

In FY 1989, Geostar Positioning Corporation continued to implement its plans to construct and launch a radiodetermination satellite service (RDSS) system. In addition to continuing construction on its three dedicated RDSS satellites, Geostar has been authorized to provide interim service using capacity on domestic fixed-satellites. In 1989, the Commission authorized Geostar to use domestic fixed-satellite C-band frequencies for the interim system's downlink transmission from GTE Spacenet fixed-satellites to the mobile user units. This link permitted Geostar to provide two-way communications capability on its interim system.

At a Congressional hearing in Marcha entitled High-technology weapons in the war on drugs, the following exchange took place:

Q: At the hearing, you testified that the Customs Service is part of a consortium of military and civilian agencies developing "an innovative satellite based covert tracking system with many law enforcement and defense applications." Please describe the project.

A: The project to develop the satellite based tag is called the Electroic Identification Tag (EIT) system. At present, Customs is under contract to develop the tag. Geostar, the prime contractor, manages the project, and Motorola, the subcontractor, is developing the commandable device. The contract was awarded in September 1986; 70 prototype tags are scheduled for delivery in October 1991.

Q: Has consortium selected a system and what is the time frame for deploying it?

A: Customs and consortium members have selected Geostar's System 3.0 which was scheduled for deployment in November 1991. However, because of fiscal problems, Geostar recently announced that the satellite launch for System 3.0 has been rescheduled for calendar year 1993 time frame. We are exploring means to minimize the impact of this delay.

Q: Is this expected to operate off an existing satellite or do you plan to deploy one?

A: The EIT device is designed to operate with a future commercial satellite to support System 3.0. The System 3.0 satellite launch schedule is given above. Customs and consortium members have no plans to launch, nor deploy another satellite to support the EIT device.

Q: Are there other, similar consortia of both military and civilian agencies working on satellite systems together?

A: Under the aegis of the Science and Technology Committee, there is presently a Satellite and Technology Working Group of military and civilian law enforcement agencies whose objective is first, to identify the individual satellite technology requirements for the participating agencies, and second, to implement these requirements. The satellite applications being pursued are communications, tracking/monitoring, position/location and navigation.

Currently, a requirements, capabilities and deficiencies report for the participating agencies is being published and will shortly be forwarded to the respective agencies for approval and acceptance. The implementation phase will include a design and architecture effort that will identify government and industry satellite service providers to determine the most cost effective source for this service. Q. How will the civilian and military agencies distribute control of the project once it is working? A. At present, there is no need or plan to distribute control of the project once the EIT tag is working. Upon completion of the project, the objective of the consortium will have been met and the consortium will be disbanded.

Q: Who will control the information?

A: All EIT information will be collected at Geostar Central for distribution to each subscribing agency. Hence, control of the information will be the respon- sibility of each agency. However, this does not preclude individual members from cooperation and sharing information with each other. With respect to Customs, information derived from Geostar Central will be directed to Customs facilities for enforcement actions.

In April, a secure, handheld satellite transmitter prototype built by a division of Motorola (now part of General Dynamics) is demonstrated.

In July, at the Second International Mobile Satellite Conference, Geostar reports that it is currently providing more than 65,000 position reports (derived via LORAN-C) and messages each day to more than 70 commercial and government customers.

Mobile units transmit a burst containing position and status information, as well as an alphanumeric message of up to about a hundred characters, at 1618.25 MHz in the band allocated for RDSS. The transmission is a direct sequence, spread spectrum signal, with a duration of 20 to 80 milliseconds per transmission packet. This signal consists of 15.625 kilobit per second data, rate-1/2 encoded for forward error correction, spread by a direct sequence pseudo-random noise code operating at 8.000 megabits per second. The spread signal is BPSK modulated and occupies about 16 MHz of bandwidth. The RDSS relay on board the host domestic fixed satellite retransmits these signals to Geostar's central earth station and operations center in Washington, D.C., using the conventional 11.7-12.2 GHz domestic satellite band.

A C-band (4/6 GHz) link using commercial fixed satellite transponders provides communications from Geostar central to the mobile terminals. This outbound link to the mobile terminals is a continuous signal, which is framed and contains message packets addressed to mobile users. This signal consists of 1200 bit per second data, rate-1/2 encoded for forward error correction, spread by a direct sequence pseudo-random noise code operating at 1.2288 megabits per second. The spread signal is BPSK modulated. Two such signals can be transmitted over the same transponder. Geostar is currently using an uplink earth station provided by GTE Spacenet to transmit this signal to the satellite, with landline connections between that earth station and Geostar's operations center in Washington, D.C.

Also in July, Geostar is granted U.S. patent 4,943,974 for Detection of burst signal transmissions. The Geostar inbound (transceiver to ground station "hub") transmission was a direct sequence spread spectrum burst which consisted of an acquisition aid ("preamble") and a payload. The acquisition aid was a configurable sequence of pseudo-noise (PN) chips which allowed a hub burst receiver to detect the transmission. The payload contained convolutionally encoded user data.

Geostar Positioning Corporation commenced two-way start-up radiodetermination satellite service in the United States in 1989.

The radiodetermination satellite service (RDSS) continued to develop in 1989. This service was authorized in 1986 and allows subscribers to determine latitude, longitude, and altitude, and to exchange brief coded messages using hand-held or vehicle-mounted transceivers. Geostar Positioning Corporation, the licensee in this service, continued construction of its three dedicated RDSS satellites, which are to operate in the frequency bands allocated for RDSS. Geostar also commenced two- way start-up service in 1989 by using capacity on domestic fixed satellites on a non-interference basis.

Geostar declares bankruptcy in February.

A July report from the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, entitled Technology Against Terrorism: The Federal Effort, stated:

This agency [U.S. Customs Service] does not engage in much original research directly related to counter terrorism. However, Customs has supported considerable work in the area of drug detection and interdiction, some of which is of ancillary utility to the war on terrorism. The largest portion of the R&D money mentioned above (about $3 million per year) has been devoted to development of a covert remote locating system (known as Geostar). Signals from a small device hidden on an object will be picked up by a pair of Earth satellites. By triangulation, the location of the object can be determined. This project is a cooperative effort with other agencies and groups, including the TSWG [Technical Support Working Group].

Several commercial two-way (active) positioning systems have been in the planning stages. One, GEOSTAR, had undergone some initial testing, but the corporation went out of business. GEOSTAR proposed the first continentwide communication and positional system. It was targeted at the transportation industry for identification, location monitoring, and communication to commercial vehicles. Electronic map displays in automobiles were a target application. GEOSTAR planned access through a subscription service. Accuracies were expected to be 10 to 50 meters. BLM used the communication component of GEOSTAR's first satellite to successfully test aircraft flight-following to assist in more accurate aircraft locations in emergencies. This very successful test used LORAN C-derived coordinates transmitted from aircraft to the GEOSTAR satellite, then to a ground station for display on a computer screen. Testing of GPS positions for flight-following was started with GEOSTAR went out of business (BLM, 1991). BLM plans to continue aircraft flight-following using other communications satellites.