A McLean, Va. company that makes technology allowing planes to be monitored from satellites orbiting the Earth received an investment from the United Kingdom’s air-traffic control service.

At a press conference on Thursday, NATS announced a $69 million investment in Aireon. With the deal, NATS now owns about 10 percent equity in the seven-year-old company.

Aieron is building a system that will monitor aircraft through a network of 66 Iridium NEXT satellites. Five of those satellites are launching on May 22, and the constellation is planned to be completed through a series of 2018 launches. Once deployed, Aireon leaders said its technology will allow real-time location tracking of aircraft equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology.

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