IonEarth Teams Up for Third Year with Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race®

ANCHORAGE, AK - March 3, 2010 – Satellite tracking and situational awareness technology developed by Traverse City, MI based IonEarth LLC, in partnership with Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:IRDM), is once again being deployed in support of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race®... “The Last Great Race On Earth.”  Small battery powered satellite tracking units attached to musher’s sleds will report the position of dog teams navigating a trail snaking for 1,000 miles from Anchorage to the historic gold-rush city of Nome, Alaska.

IonEarth is providing the service for a third consecutive year and it has quickly become integral to the race, indispensable to race officials and popular with fans.

In previous years very little was known about mushers as they raced between the Iditarod’s 22 checkpoints.  It can take 9 to 15 days to complete this grueling, sleep deprived race through blizzards, rough trail and temperatures down to -50° Fahrenheit.  With the IonEarth system in place, officials and fans alike can see the position and status of every musher on the trail including mushers who may have lost their way.  An IonEarth Satellite Race Telemetry (SRT) unit mounted on each musher’s sled transmits location, speed, heading, altitude and air temperature every 15 minutes through Iridium’s constellation of 66 Low-Earth-Orbit satellites.

Back in 2008, Jerry Miller of IonEarth and his team approached the Iditarod Trail Committee (ITC) with the idea to create a real-time tracking system for the race.  After a trial run on 20 teams, the tracker proved its value and durability resulting in units being placed on every sled in 2009. Again in 2010, mandatory gear carried by all dog mushers will include snowshoes, an ax, a sleeping bag – and an IonEarth SRT unit.

IonEarth’s SRT unit adds a negligible 30 ounces of weight to the musher’s sled. Each tracking unit consists of a GPS receiver, an Iridium SBD (Short Burst Data) transceiver, necessary control electronics and specially designed high-performance Lithium batteries provided by Electrochem Solutions, Inc.  These batteries are uniquely capable of powering IonEarth’s trackers for the full duration of the race in the extreme cold of the Alaskan wilderness.
In an effort to preserve the spirit of this rugged race, mushers will not be able to view data from the devices in the field: Each musher must rely on his or her own abilities to compete, care for their dogs and cope with harsh and unpredictable conditions on their own.

“I look forward to carrying the IonEarth tracker again, so my family, friends and fans can see where I am,” said Sebastian Schnuelle, the 2009 Iditarod’s 2nd place finisher. “IonEarth has made the Iditarod much more fun to follow from home.  I know many fans are outright addicted to it and go online at all hours to check our progress. I also felt much more comfortable during last year’s storm on the coast knowing that race officials and my family could see that I was still moving towards Koyuk and not stranded on the sea ice.” Hugh Neff, 2010 Yukon Quest 3rd place finisher said, “Having trackers on the dog musher's sleds has allowed the viewing audience a greater opportunity to see the race beyond the checkpoints, to learn more about each musher's strategic moves as they head down the trail towards Nome.”

In addition to providing viewers at home with a way of following the race in near real-time, IonEarth’s SRT system provides race officials and camera crews with musher positional information while operating in the field.  Field personal equipped with an IonEarth SRT unit, along with a small handheld computer, can monitor the positions of mushers from anywhere on the trail without the need for other forms of communication.  Camera men operating independently on snowmobiles in the Alaskan wilderness can see each other as well the as mushers via the IonEarth SRT system and strategically place themselves on the trail to get the shots they want.  This same capability enables officials stationed at isolated checkpoints to anticipate the arrival of mushers, allowing them to plan rest for support personnel during an unpredictable race that operates 24 hours a day for multiple weeks.

Online tracking of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race can be viewed on the official Iditarod website starting on race day - Sunday, March 7 at 2 p.m., Alaska Standard Time.  IonEarth’s web tracker overlays the official course along with musher positions and checkpoints on a detailed map of Alaska giving the viewer a sense of the scale of the environment.



New this year, fans can track the Iditarod using their iPhone or Android powered phones.  A specially formatted iPhone/Android friendly website will be available to Iditarod Insider subscribers for the first time in 2010.  IonEarth’s implementation of this Race-at-a- Glance feature on these phones enables fans to keep up with the race from the palm of their hand.  Also new this year is IonEarth’s Live Replay feature which lets viewers turn the clock back at any point during the race.

In addition to providing real-time live tracking of the historic Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, IonEarth also provides tracking services and logistics support for a number of other sports including long distance off-road racing, rally racing, sailboat racing and expedition tracking.