Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has become the first airline to sign a deal for space-based tracking of its aircraft, three years after losing flight MH370 over the Indian Ocean.

This followed a deal signed between the airline, the satellite communications company SITAOnAir, and aircraft tracking service providers Aireon LLC and FlightAware.

“By incorporating this data, Malaysia Airlines’ aircraft operations centre will receive real-time position updates of its airborne fleet globally.

“Aireon’s space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data will also resolve any existing data feed coverage gaps that remain, particularly over oceanic and remote airspace, where there is currently no surveillance.

“No new avionics or modifications are needed for aircraft to take advantage of this service,” the three companies said in a joint press release yesterday.

The was no mention on the cost of the service in the press release.

They said that the service will be available in 2018, shortly after the Iridium Next constellation of communications satellites that the service relies on is completed.

The first ten of 66 satellites had been successfully launched into low-earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan 14.

MAS' flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014 with all 239 on board, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft was presumed to have crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The incident had spurred the what is often claimed to be the most expensive search operation in aviation history, which was suspended on Jan 17 after the search yielded nothing but floating debris from the aircraft.

It also renewed interest in global tracking of aircraft that first started with the ​Air France Flight 447 incident in 2009, which was the previous record holder for the most expensive search operation.

On November 2015, the UN agency International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) adopted new flight tracking rules that require airliners to be tracked at least 15-minute intervals when flying over oceanic areas, among other requirements and recommendations.

Current tracking of aircraft, including in the case of MH370, often uses the ADS-B system – the aircraft would broadcast information such as its position, speed, and altitude, which is then received by air traffic controllers on the ground.

The deal with Aireon and FlightAware would allow MAS aircraft’s ADS-B broadcasts to be received via satellite in addition to ground stations.

It is one of several competing solutions offered by various companies to help airlines meet the new ICAO requirements.

However, a Bloomberg report noted that it is unclear if this would have made a difference in the case of MH370.

“The plane’s (ADS-B) location transmitter went dead, possibly because it was intentionally shut off, and the aircraft would not have been visible to the satellite network,” the report said.