Shipmonitoring via AIS: ESAIL successfully launched by LuxSpace

Discover the final hours of packaging and preparations of the ESAIL satellite before it left Luxembourg. The ESAIL microsatellite for tracking ships at sea has completed its latest environmental and system performance tests and set off for Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. On 17 February the satellite left Luxembourg, where it was built by LuxSpace under an ESA Partnership Project with the Canadian operator exactEarth, sponsored by the Luxembourg Space Agency and other ESA member...

The #ESAIL #microsatellite for tracking ships worldwide was launched. This is the first maritime satellite of its kind produced and assembled in Luxembourg. Hear from #Luxembourg Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot about this pioneering #ESA partnership project developed with #LuxSpace and #Exactearth.

LuxSpace CEO, Jochen Harms, on putting the ESAIL microsatellite into orbit.
ESAIL is part of ESA’s Partnership Projects and has been developed to enhance the next generation of space‐based services for the maritime sector. The spacecraft will track ship movements over the entire globe as it orbits the planet.

The joint House and Senate Commerce committees Monday joined 87 pilots and Board of Louisiana River Pilot Review and Oversight in rejecting the proposed measures on the argument that they would negatively affect minorities trying to break into river piloting.

The average harbor pilot at the Port of Los Angeles makes $434,000 a year, but also faces a one in 20 chance of dying on the job, according to a book from The Wall Street Journal's Christopher Mims that was published in 2021.

Open Waters Program Launch - Maritime Career Development Program
Louisiana River Pilots Association - Crescent River Port Pilots - New Orleans-Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association

On the night of January 1, 2019, MSC Zoe lost approximately 290 containers in heavy weather on the journey from Portugal to Bremerhaven. The loss of so many containers is an exceptional event and is the second largest known container loss of a ship due to heavy weather.

EMPA has released their latest newsletter.

GNSS interference has become a growing challenge in the Baltic Sea, affecting maritime navigation, aviation, and critical infrastructure. While numerous datasets and services, such as gpsjam.org, spoofing.skai-data-services.com, and flightradar24, report high-altitude GNSS interference based on ADS-B data, there is a significant lack of studies focusing on ground-level interference.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued Marine Accident Brief 20/37 Tuesday for its investigation of the Sept. 23, 2019, accident involving the tugboat G.M. McAllister and the NGL Energy Partners wharf on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, near Chesapeake, Virginia.