Originally Posted by
iquitos
Why does airbus have a satellite and what does it use it for?
Because the Airbus Group has this division:
Airbus Defense & Space
A March 25, 2014
AP article (Philly.com) includes an estimate of the precision of Inmarsat's calculations:
Gregory D. Durgin, a professor who teaches satellite communications at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said that because Inmarsat was using a different kind of satellite in a novel way, he expects it would locate the last ping from the Malaysia Airlines lane within "around 100 miles (161 kilometers) of precision."
To me, this means that even if Inmarsat's calculations and assumptions were 100% correct, the searchers still have a very big search area to cover.