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4.
The Mission Control Center receives the alert and relays this with location
information to a Rescue Coordination Center, often looking up the unique
beacon ID number to gather information about the registered owner.
5.
The Rescue Coordination Center alerts the appropriate emergency
response teams to deploy a rescue effort.
The Cospas-Sarsat System today includes two types of satellites: Low-altitude
Earth orbit (LEOSAR) and Geostationary Earth orbit (GEOSAR), each
contributing respective advantages to detection and location of distress
beacons that have been activated.
The LEOSAR system can locate a beacon without the aid of a GPS, but the
LEOSAR satellites only view a small part of the Earth at any given time and
may require multiple passes of a satellite resulting in delay to the search and
rescue process.
The GEOSAR system constantly covers the entire Earth except the high-
latitude (e.g., polar) regions receiving distress alerts across most of the globe.
However, it cannot locate the beacon unless the location is encoded in the
beacon's message from a local navigation receiver such as a GPS.
MEOSAR is an advanced next generation satellite-based technology that is
revolutionising the Cospas-Sarsat ecosystem. Once complete, MEOSAR will
put over 6 times the number of existing Cospas-Sarsat satellites into orbit,
resulting in greater global coverage and more position accuracy.
12.2 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
GNSS systems such as GPS, Galileo and GLONASS can be used by the
GNSS equipped EPIRB to determine its position with high accuracy. Advanced
GNSS data processing results in fast detection of positioning coordinates and
enhances the accuracy of the emergency location.
12.3 MEOSAR Compatibility Explained
Smartfind G8 AIS, Smartfind G8 and Smartfind E8 EPIRBs are fully
compatible with the Early Operation Capability (EOC) and Full Operating
Capability (FOC) MEOSAR systems and will benefit from the improved
detection and location capabilities of this new infrastructure.
The International Cospas-Sarsat Programme initiated the development and
deployment of a Medium-altitude Earth Orbiting Satellite Search and Rescue
(MEOSAR) System in 2004 to complement and eventually replace the Low-
altitude Earth Orbit SAR Satellites (LEOSAR) deployed from the 1980s
through 2010.
The MEOSAR system employs SAR repeaters on Global Navigation Satellite
Systems (e.g., GPS, Galileo, and Glonass) and provides improved detection,
and independent position locating capability for emergency position indicating
radio beacons (EPIRBs), emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) and personal
locator beacons (PLBs).
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