The UCAR Cap Odyssée challenge will get high bandwidth satellite communications through a partnership formed between Iridium (News - Alert) Satellite and SeaMobile Europe.

 

Iridium Satellite LLC claims it is the only mobile satellite service (MSS) company offering pole-to-pole coverage over the entire globe. SeaMobile Europe deals in providing global satellite communication services.

 

The challenge will see three French women Stéphanie Geyer-Barneix, Alexandra Lux and Flora Manciet trying to cross the North Atlantic Ocean on paddleboards, starting their journey from Cape Breton Island, Canada and they hope to complete the traversal by arriving at Capbreton, France two months later. The three women are competitive paddle boarders who have won numerous European and world championship titles. They will try and paddle in relays and are targeting an average of 100 kilometers per day. Yves Parlier, the French sailor, adventurer and inventor, will sail a support vessel accompanying the women.

 

SeaMobile has stated that it will deploy an Iridium OpenPort marine satellite terminal at the accompanying vessel in order to provide high quality and data connections for the adventurers and the vessel while at sea. SeaMobile Europe says its unique ClipWay software will enable Parlier and his crew to transmit video files that will be sent via a unique optimized IP protocol and will then be fed to news media following the expedition throughout the voyage.

 

Iridium has stated that its OpenPort terminal offers an unbeatable value proposition of multiple phone lines, IP connectivity and flexible data speeds up to 128 kilobits per second (kbps), with lower equipment and airtime costs.

 

The French aerospace technology company, Thales Alenia Space, and SAFRAN are primary sponsors for the UCAR Cap Odyssée event and are providing technical support to Parlier and the challenge team.

 

Iridium has stated that this challenge will offer them too a chance to showcase the advanced capabilities of Iridium OpenPort. The product meets the demand for higher-capacity voice and data connections in a small, lightweight, inexpensive package. Since then, the system’s capabilities have been validated through extensive land testing and sea trials.

 

SeaMobile Europe maintains that video feeds from the accompanying vessel will help news media and fans to keep track of the adventures of the three brave women and its proprietary ClipWay technology makes it possible to easily capture, compress and send the video files for transmission through the Iridium OpenPort data link to a computer server ashore.

 

“For an adventure of this nature, the safety of the competitors is of primary importance,” said Yves Parlier. “That is why we are placing our reliance on Iridium OpenPort. The system will serve as our primary communication link with the outside world throughout the voyage. We will depend on it to give us critical reports from our support team ashore on weather and sea currents.”

 

SeaMobile Europe had announced two product updates to its Media ClipWay software. Iridium had recently successfully completed sea trials on a number of different vessels.