In cooperation with the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA), NASA and the Medallion Foundation, DigitalGlobe, a commercial high-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial information provider, is launching a new research and development project designed to help improve aviation safety in Alaska, DigitalGlobe announced March 28.

Alaska is among the world’s most aviation-dependent regions, hosting approximately 600 public airports and more than 3,000 airstrips.

In a joint effort to reduce aircraft accidents, DigitalGlobe will provide its state-of-the-art, high-resolution satellite imagery to the DMVA to develop approximately 65,000 square kilometers’ worth of extremely accurate terrain datasets regarding Alaska’s most deadly mountain passes and transportation corridors.

"High-resolution imagery is a vital resource in situations that involve extreme conditions," said Marc Tremblay, vice president and general manager of DigitalGlobe’s commercial business unit. "To survive, both pilots and emergency responders require the most up-to-date and accurate data, and we are proud to be a part of this life changing project."

With the help of the Medallion Foundation, a non-profit aviation safety group, the Alaska Aviation Safety Project (AASP) is developing advanced training technologies through which pilots may utilize access to state-of-the-art flight training that can help prepare them to navigate dangerous passes with three-dimensional (3-D) simulations of the very mountainous terrain they will encounter. Prior to the AASP, Alaska had generated 35 percent of the nation’s commercial aviation accidents; now, the DMVA is forecasting that by 2008 that average will be reduced to 20 percent.

"There isn’t a person in Alaska that doesn’t know someone that has died in an aviation-related accident," said Steve Colligan, president of E-Terra, a geographic information systems company based in Anchorage. "So when you talk to the pilots that have used the training resources, and you see how grateful they are, that’s when it really hits home."

In 2001, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) requested research proposals for the use of remote imaging to improve environmental, aviation and ocean fisheries issues in his home state. The DMVA applied for a $3 million grant to use remote-imaging and digital elevation models to map and create virtual fly-throughs of the state’s 12 most dangerous mountain passes, with the renderings used in training general aviation pilots and assisting the Air National Guard’s Rescue Coordination Center’s rescue of downed pilots. After 3-D depictions of both Lake Clark and Merrill passes received national recognition, NASA in 2004 awarded the DMVA $2.8 million to research and purchase ortho-imaging capability to create models of 10 other passes.