AeroAstro to Install SENS Wireless Tracking System for
Noise-Monitoring Demonstration at Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport

Herndon, VA – May 10, 2001

AeroAstro, Inc., the world’s premier small satellite technology company, has announced the first installation of its wireless Sensor Enabled Notification System (SENS) by the Mississippi Space Commerce Initiative (MSCI) for an aircraft noise monitoring demonstration at Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport.

The SENS field devices are wireless transmitters for a wide variety of logistics and monitoring applications. In this demonstration, they will sample aircraft noise data every two seconds and transfer that data via antenna to an AeroAstro proprietary decoder. The overlapping spread-spectrum signals will then be translated into standard noise-data scales and transferred to the Internet for use by airport officials with complementary software. Researchers in the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Departments at the University of Mississippi, under an MSCI research contract, assisted AeroAstro with development and evaluation of the system.

Dr. Rick Fleeter, President and CEO of AeroAstro, said, "SENS represents a dramatically different approach from current technology. It is small, very low cost, and easily installed and maintained for a wide variety of tracking and logistics applications. The noise-monitoring application requires no outside power or telephone-line infrastructure. We look forward to offering this product to airports around the world."

The SENS transmitters will be integrated with digital microphones, solar battery supplies and noise-monitoring software. AeroAstro will work in conjunction with Wyle Laboratories, a premier noise-monitoring firm, to customize the equipment.

Other potential uses of SENS by airports include air-side and ground-side vehicle tracking and monitoring, parking space management, and the monitoring of airport fixed assets such as lights and signs.

"AeroAstro exemplifies the MSCI concept of taking commercially viable ideas, assisted through university research, to the marketplace. MSCI is very pleased to assist AeroAstro in demonstrating its commercial product at a test site in Mississippi," said Dr. Allan Falconer, MSCI Executive Director.

More About SENS:

SENS is a tiny, inexpensive, one-way communications device which can reliably and simply send location and/or status information to the Internet for customer retrieval. Data is transferred via a terrestrial antenna or small, inexpensive low earth orbiting (LEO) satellites. Customers may use SENS to track and monitor fixed or mobile remote assets in a highly cost-effective manner.

The system will support a broad variety of logistics and monitoring applications from vehicle tracking to tele-medicine. It will inaugurate a new field of "In-Situ Remote Sensing" where data may be read from thousands of tiny sensors scattered around farms, industrial sites and other broad geographic areas for applications such as precision farming and environmental monitoring.

"In less than a decade, every object with a value over $100 will be wireless in some way, and millions will connect their assets to the Internet with SENS," said David Goldstein, AeroAstro's Vice President for Business Development.

More About AeroAstro:

AeroAstro, a pioneer of micro and nanospacecraft applications in science, remote sensing and communications, led the trend towards high technology in miniature satellites 3⁄4 now the industry standard. It has designed and launched the highly successful ALEXIS satellite currently in its seventh year operating on-orbit, and also designed the HETE satellite used by MIT as the basis for the successful launch of HETE-2 in 2000.

AeroAstro is now paving the way to a new age of space communications, enabling users unprecedented connectivity. AeroAstro has designed, constructed, tested and supported the launch of a number of small satellites and currently has three additional spacecraft and numerous flight hardware systems in development.

It provides systems engineering, radio, attitude control and other hardware and software systems for many earth orbit and interplanetary programs. NASA, the Air Force, and commercial and university customers have all employed AeroAstro throughout its 12-year history.

More About MSCI:

MSCI is a partnership among NASA, the State of Mississippi and the University of Mississippi (on behalf of research universities throughout the state), and high technology businesses. NASA and the State of Mississippi are co-investors in MSCI. The mission of MSCI is to develop a remote sensing industry in Mississippi by commercializing the technologies developed by NASA at the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi.