capability of receiving the MANICE messages from C-CORE was comparable to the current 

 method of data delivery from aircraft reconnaissance and voluntary ship reports and would be 

 operationally beneficial. 



Analysis of this service is ongoing and will continue during the 2005 ice season. C-CORE has 

 made improvements to the IDS, which will be validated in 2005 with more under flights. A 

 greater understanding of how environmental conditions affect POD and POC is necessary. 

 Eventually, a cost analysis will be necessary to compare the detection capability and coverage 

 area of the C-CORE output versus HC-130 reconnaissance. 



Currently, it is unlikely that satellites will replace the HC-130 aircraft as IIP's primary means for 

 iceberg reconnaissance. The flexibility of directing the aircraft and the ability to visually identify 

 ambiguous radar targets give the airplane a great advantage over satellite reconnaissance. 

 Satellites, however, do have the potential to augment aircraft reconnaissance in the near future, 

 potentially allowing some HC-130 hours to be reallocated to other U.S. Coast Guard missions. 



Ice Patrol will continue to seek technological advances to improve its ability to find the icebergs 

 that pose a threat to transatlantic mariners. In addition to working with C-CORE, IIP is also 

 considering various technological innovations for iceberg reconnaissance, such as the use of 

 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Theoretically, UAVs combined with satellite coverage over Ice 

 Patrol's operations area could eventually eliminate the need to deploy aerial ice observers to the 

 North Atlantic. The International Ice Patrol of the future could be two people sitting in a 

 command center, while directing a UAV and receiving satellite iceberg data to create and issue 

 iceberg warnings; yet much work is still necessary to determine the feasibility of operationally 

 incorporating these technologies. 



Table 1. Image Swath Modes for ENVISAT. 



54 



