By 2021, Australian skies will be managed by the most advanced and integrated air traffic control system in the world.

Unifying Australian skies for Defence and Civil aviation, the OneSKY program will manage approximately 11 per cent of the world’s airspace – from the north of Australia to Antarctica – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It will enable a new level of operational efficiency and safety in Australia’s air traffic management that will reduce delays for the travelling public.

OneSKY is a collaboration between the Department of Defence and Airservices Australia – a government-owned organisation that provides air traffic management and air navigation support to the aviation industry. It will replace the current civilian system known as The Australian Advanced Air Traffic System (TAAATS).

Built in the 1990s, TAAATS has had more than 200 incremental system changes since it was first commissioned in 2000.

The OneSKY program’s critical functionality will be met by two recently completed data centre facilities described by the Australian Defence Force and Airservices Australia as “the two most mission critical data centres in the country.”

Through close collaboration, A.G. Coombs and builder Icon Co developed a data centre solution that meets the OneSKY mission critical requirements and delivers a resilient computing environment that is safe, secure and reliable.

The full Design and Construct (D&C) contract has seen the delivery of the two new data centres within Airservices Australia’s facilities at Melbourne Airport and Brisbane Airport. These will ultimately replace existing facilities and underpin Australia’s air traffic management system.

Each site required a similar building typology with identical technical specifications.

As lead services specialist on the project, A.G. Coombs delivered the mechanical, electrical, fire and security services design and installation for the project.

The use of digital technologies featured heavily in the design and installation. Spatial coordination of the building structures, as well as all services and systems, was achieved using 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM). Computerised Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was also applied to optimise system design capability.

Trimble positioning technology was also used to set-out services supports and ceilings, ensuring accuracy and saving time on the project.

Each facility’s equipment rooms are designed to house 94 specialty IT equipment racks. The Tier 3 TIA-942 design meets Airservices Australia’s stringent reliability requirement of 99.9997% availability and security requirements.

Concurrent maintainability is also achieved – meaning the facility can be maintained and upgraded in the future without outages.

Designed by Genton Architecture, the buildings’ exterior facades and internal spaces have been carefully integrated with the existing Air Traffic Services Centre building to enable efficient access for operational and technical personnel. They promote a high level of security and best practice layout of spaces for OneSKY ICT equipment and supporting power, cooling and fire systems.

Installation and integration works at both locations were completed in April 2016.

According to A.G. Coombs Project Manager Gerard Mignone, the new equipment rooms at Melbourne and Brisbane airports underpin the OneSKY program.

“A.G. Coombs, in partnership with Icon Co, has successfully delivered these critical equipment rooms to meet Airservices’ stringent physical, building services and digital security requirements.”

We understand that together, the civil and military elements of this future air traffic management system will support more than 200 operational air traffic control workstations deployed to multiple locations across Australia
Gerard Mignone, Project Manager, A.G. Coombs