Alex Davis – Wired: “The ground radar network dates back to the 1950s, when air traffic finally got busy enough that officials needed a new way to track aircraft on the move. Since then, the network has greatly expanded, and the radars have been upgraded, though small air traffic facilities didn’t upgrade from vacuum tube to solid state radar systems until the 2000s. But the basic technology is the same. The FAA is quick to use this situation as an argument in favor of NextGen, its $37 billion project to modernize management of US airspace by 2030. A key component of the program is replacing ground based radars with satellite-based surveillance and navigation using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) technology. Under the new system, planes will figure out their position using satellite and periodically broadcast it to stations on the ground. The change would allow planes to broadcast and receive more information. Programs are underway to modernize the ARTCCs, allowing them to work with aircraft well beyond their geographical purview. Combined with the ADS-B network, Huerta says, “we will have the ability to configure any single facility to view any part of our nation’s airspace.” With that capability, after the Aurora ARTCC was shut down, “we would be able to have each of the neighboring en route centers reach into Chicago’s airspace and take control of all of the radios used to control aircraft there,” Huerta says. “We would have been able to rapidly establish ground-to-ground connections between these en route centers and the TRACONS that normally connect to Chicago center.” In other words, the NextGen systems promise more flexibility to work around a problem like this one, so safety could be maintained without giving up so much efficiency.”