Proposed new concepts for an advanced search and rescue satellite system

Abstract

In search and rescue (SAR) situations, the potential for survival of distress victims is greatly improved by minimizing the response time from accident until help arrives. The COSPAS/SARSAT satellite system is a successful high-technology example of the effort to reduce the response time, and thus increase the chances for survival of aircraft, marine, and remote-area accident victims. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the methods and cost tradeoffs of further improving the response time by reducing the forwarding time from COSPAS/SARSAT satellite passage until a location is supplied to the SAR forces. This paper expands upon a 1980 proposal by Y. Zurabov to shorten the forwarding time by immediately relaying 406 MHz data from the low earth-orbiting COSPAS/SARSAT satellites to the ground via geostationary satellites, rather than storing the data on-board for delayed transfer, as is presently done. (Zurabov, Y., et al ., “possibility of Creating Combined Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided System,” 31st IAF Congress paper IAF-80-A11-28). In addition, an alternate method is presented in this paper, which uses redundant polar ground stations rather than the geostationary satellites. Both methods are expanded to a feasible implementation description, and performance and annual costs are estimated and described. The paper then presents a tradeoff between the delay time reduction and additional annual cost resulting from the implementation of either of the proposed schemes. This tradeoff information is offered to organizations developing future satellite-aided search and rescue systems.