NASA Selects ARINC’s AviNet Network Service
Annapolis, Maryland, USA, May 22, 2007 — ARINC Incorporated has been awarded the wide-area network contract to support an important NASA safety initiative for commercial aviation, the NASA Ames Distributed National FOQA and ASAP (DNFA/DNAA) Archive Program.
ARINC’s Network Solutions Division is teamed with Battelle, the prime contractor that originally designed and implemented the program’s technology.
NASA’s aim is to provide a secure archive for research and discovery of systemic safety-related problems that may span multiple airlines, fleets, and regions. The DNFA/DNAA archive can retrieve and store selected Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) data from daily flights of thousands of commercial aircraft, as well as Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) reports submitted by employees of participating airlines.
FOQA programs attempt to identify recorded data from flights where deviations from norms take place. The aim is to pick out potential problems and correct them before they lead to accidents. ASAP programs seek to enhance aviation safety through the voluntary reporting of exceptional events by airline personnel.
ARINC will implement its wide-area AviNetTM IP network connectivity to support the program mission of evaluating automated flight recorder data and exceptional-event reports from participating U.S. airlines. Ten carriers are already in the program and more are expected to join. By choosing ARINC, NASA will immediately benefit from existing AviNet connections at a number of airlines. ARINC AviNet replaces dedicated commercial circuits and provides equal or better performance at reduced cost. AviNet will transport NASA’s data on demand to the central archive from servers at each airline. Data will also be re-distributed to participating research organizations and universities.
All data transmissions are governed by data confidentiality and security policies established by NASA in cooperation with the FAA and participating air carriers. A variety of procedural and IT safeguards ensure compliance with these requirements in order to maintain the anonymity of air carrier data providers. AviNet is an important element of that security solution.
“ARINC came through for us admirably, and I am grateful to them and to Battelle for working out a most satisfactory and affordable approach,” commented Dr. Irving Statler, NASA Ames Research Center Manager of Aviation Safety Monitoring and Modeling. Dr. Statler assisted the leadership of the Voluntary Safety Information Sharing Aviation Rulemaking Committee in evaluating ways to expand the DNFA/DNAA program while reducing operational costs.
AviNet’s reliability and availability meet today’s requirements for mission-critical airline communications—including high volume passenger reservation systems. The AviNet network is scalable to support growing needs of aviation for greater data bandwidth. AviNet security is based on industry best practices, and proactive monitoring and management is provided through the ARINC 24/7 Network Operations Center.
