The cause of air disasters may range from bad weather to technical glitches. The worst part is when nothing is known about the location of crash sites like that of the MH370. The knowledge of what happened or where a disaster occurred may at least loosen the mystery surrounding them. This would not only answer those grieving relatives of the lost ones who have lost all hope in knowing what happened to the fate of their loved ones but also help in analyzing and resolving future air disasters. It is challenging to imagine that in this age of space exploration where humans have been able to cross interstellar space, we have still not been able to accurately monitor the space around our own home planet. Although reconnaissance missions may have clandestinely been able to monitor regions of the earth with sub-centimeter level resolution, it would be worthwhile to put them into humane operations with better temporal resolutions. Related research articles would be appreciated.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-10785301
I have other point of view, I think the story of MH370 is a bit different because the connection between the airplane and the watchtower has been lost, that's mean one of the most important remote sensing device (gps) which has the ability to work with high resolution and determine the location of any object has stopped, but again the mis-connection and the device stop- working I think was the problem, So I think the temporal and spatial resolution of many nowadays satellites are good enough.
Thank you Dr. Falah for your reply. I certainly agree that the case of MH370 is quite peculiar with many bizarre and controversial speculations of its disappearance making the rounds. My aim with this question is to understand and possibly make some recommendations to better track aircrafts in case of a disaster. I found it rather puzzling that in spite of our ultra-high resolution and high temporal satellite capabilities we were not able to track down this aircraft after its disappearance. I can perceive that may be no satellite was passing overhead at the time it got lost which was after mid night. Whatever be the case I would like to investigate what can be done in situations when an aircraft gets off the radar and the gps tracking system fails. Can Remote Sensing satellites come to the rescue? Is it too far fetched to place high resolution satellites in geostationary orbits which might give us a 24/7 coverage of the space around us in addition to weather and communication coverage? I know we are not yet there technology wise and probably some might argue that the costs might be exceedingly great. Nevertheless, I can at least hope that we all agree on one point that no cost can be higher than human lives. Anyway only high and ultra-high resolution satellites can image these airplanes, a technology which we already have. The only question remains about the repetivity. That is why I stressed on temporal resolution while formulating the question. I would be grateful if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on how Remote Sensing can be employed in disaster scenarios to track an aircraft.
I came across an interesting paper by two of my previous professors titled, 'Remote Sensing of moving objects'.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264738742_Remote_sensing_of_moving_objects?ev=prf_pub
Article Remote sensing of moving objects
The case of MH370 is too new to aviation and caught everyone by surprise (the 9/11 lessons of transponders being turned off voluntarily seemed to have been forgotten). Although it is too early to say what happened and why, the probability is that MH370 transponder was also turned off voluntarily. A solution, which could also bypass the need for remote sensors in the immediate future, is to make transponders inaccessible to any voluntary interference.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Indexes