Taking the "Search" Out of Search-and-Rescue

Since 1982, more than 14,000 people worldwide and 4,335 in the United States alone have been rescued from downed airplanes, capsized boats, and land emergencies. CSC plays an important role in these rescues in its work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Search And Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) program.

How SARSAT Works

Aviators and mariners in distress use Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) and Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs), respectively, to transmit emergency signals to low earth orbiting and geostationary satellites. The satellites transmit these signals to Local User Terminals (LUTs) in the US and overseas.

The LUTs process the data, derive the location of the distress, and then transmit the alert and location by landline to the U.S. Mission Control Center (USMCC) in Suitland, Maryland. The USMCC merges the data with previous satellite data, identifies the beacon owner, and transmits the information to the Rescue Coordination Center nearest the distress.

CSC's Role in Anywhere, Anytime Rescue

"Some of the CSC staff have worked on the SARSAT Program for over 20 years," says Bill Macoughtry, Program Manager. "We are responsible for systems engineering and provide programmatic and meeting support services. We analyze satellite-to-earth communications frequencies and protect them from interference, such as transmissions which bleed over into the frequency band set aside for search and rescue." Bart Sessions and Nancy Linton use their engineering expertise to keep the system at the highest level of effectiveness.

CSC played a key role in the installation of the second generation, unmanned LUTs. According to CSC-SARSAT employee Roy Dreibelbis, "We provided factory acceptance, installation, and certification testing to make sure that the LUTs met the performance specifications established by the International COSPAS-SARSAT organization." CSC is now providing similar support to the installation of the third generation LUTs that NOAA is installing.

Because the remote LUTs are unmanned, NOAA depends on the host facility for housing, electrical power and environmental support such as air conditioning and heat. "Roy interfaces with the local hosts, ensuring that the LUTs are operational around the clock, 365 days of the year." shares Bill Macoughtry.

Capacity to Handle the Real and the Unreal

Part of CSC's responsibility is to make sure that the life-saving system functions in emergencies. In keeping with that mandate, Fred Kissel recently completed a capacity test to see how many beacons, all going off at one time, the satellite and ground systems can handle.

"We found the system capable of handling many beacons simultaneously-conservatively it's in the neighborhood of 37 at the same time. Of course, that level of simultaneous emergency use is highly unlikely. But as more people use the beacons, we might need to evaluate the capacity issue again," says Fred Kissel.

Not all alarms signal an actual emergency situation. The USMCC receives over 300 alerts per day. Although almost 90 percent of these are false alarms, all must be investigated.

On the International Meeting Circuit

CSC also supports NOAA at national and international COSPAS-SARSAT meetings. Katie Kirk recently returned from San Diego where she provided the logistics support for a NOAA sponsored Beacon Manufacturers Workshop.

"We generate NOAA papers for meetings, review papers written by other members of the COSPAS-SARSAT organization, and respond to action items generated by the Secretariat in London," says Katie Kirk.

A System Without Walls

Because satellite search has proven to cut the recover time from days to hours for maritime and aviation accidents, several countries have authorized the use of Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs). "The FCC is in the process of authorizing PLB use, under controlled conditions, in the United States," says Roy Dreibelbis.

"Campers, backpackers, and construction gangs go into places where there's no cell phone service. People break arms and legs. They suffer poisonous snake strikes. PLBs are great in remote areas with limited or non-existent communications. All someone in distress must do is turn on one of the PLBs. The satellite system will pick up the alert and route it to the proper authorities."

With 27 years of U.S. Air Force search and rescue experience and 15 years working on the COSPAS-SARSAT program, Roy Dreibelbis sums up the work he and his colleagues provide: "Anything you can do to contribute to saving someone's life is significant. The program has been instrumental not only in saving thousands of lives, but also in saving millions of dollars in search efforts."

"Anyone in the world-any country that wants to have a ground system-can receive the data from the orbiting satellites," he shares. "There are no boundaries, no walls to this life-saving system. We're proud to be part of that story."

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