Orolia provides improved search and rescue with ground station upgrades

Orolia has successfully installed the first operational Cospas-Sarsat second-generation technology on search-and-rescue ground stations for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Florida and Hawaii.

The ground stations have been upgraded with second-generation beacon (SGB) signal-processing capabilities to more accurately and quickly locate the source of distress signals.

The NOAA Florida and Hawaii ground stations are the only operationally ready Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) ground stations in the world to receive the SGB signal specification capability.

The Cospas-Sarsat global search-and-rescue system developed specifications for the second-generation 406-MHz search-and-rescue beacon, which uses a modern, spread-spectrum signal to achieve more accurate and robust performance.

“The work performed by Orolia was exceptional, as the process of upgrading an operational system to a higher set of requirements, years after its initial design, involves minimizing downtime while validating the new requirements and revalidating the previous requirements,” said Mickey Fitzmaurice, NOAA SARSAT Systems Engineer. “The successful result makes it obvious that the engineering and operations team at Orolia put a great deal of time and effort into planning the upgrade, as the execution was seamless.”

Orolia has also launched a Galileo-enabled personal locator beacon and commissioned the first two nodal LEOSAR-GEOSAR-MEOSAR (LGM) mission control centers.

“This series of world firsts demonstrates Orolia’s broad technical leadership in the global search and rescue ecosystem,” said Orolia Director of SARSAT Operations, Steve Ludwig. “We continually innovate to enhance the usefulness of these technologies, from generating encrypted beacon alert signals to including alert authentication through the use of Galileo Return Link Service.”

Cospas-Sarsat ground stations are called Local User Terminals (LUTs). These satellite receiving units are the ground stations that receive emergency beacon distress alerts. (Photo: NOAA)