Are satellite emergency beacons too slow?
Jun
Is the current emergency system too slow?
You probably don’t want to be reading this if you are on a sinking ship or lost in the woods but current emergency beacons can take up to an hour before search and rescue is alerted to your crisis and provided with your location details.
Hopefully your situation is not so life threatening that you can’t comfortably wait an hour before being rescued. However, there are times where minutes can mean the difference between life and death. Here are a few scenarios* where you want to be rescued in a hurry:
- You’re in the middle of a forest fire and left your flame-retardant suit at home
- The boat you’re on is sinking fast into shark-infested waters
- You’re stuck in downtown LA and about to miss the final episode of Lost
- You’re stranded in a cave with your booty and the tide’s rising quickly
- You’re underwater breathing through a reed with Amazon killer bees circling above you and the piranhas are almost finished with the cow next to you
- You’re trapped in an elevator with Jay Leno
- A bear with a chainsaw is chasing you through the woods, and Sarah Palin is nowhere to be seen
- You’re hog-tied in the boot and Thelma and Louise are driving you around the cliffs
- You’re on a bridge on Harper’s Island with Wakefield and Henry on either side
*Scenarios not based on actual experiences
When you need help in a hurry, you want your emergency locator beacon to notify SAR (Search and Rescue) quickly and give them your exact coordinates. So why is the current system, which is credited with saving more than 27,000 lives over the last 30 years, not good enough and what are rescue services doing about it?
So what’s wrong with the current rescue system?
The current system used is known as the COSPAS-SARSAT system.
The COSPAS-SARSAT system detects signals from emergency beacons, when activated, which transmit a signal on the 406 Mhz channel (or 121.5 Mhz, however these older, less reliable ELTs are being phased out). The signal is picked up by a low-Earth orbit NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellite, however, and this is one of the problems with the current system, it may not be in the right position to detect the signal as soon as the beacon is activated. This is because the satellites only make 14 orbits a day leaving gaps in their coverage.
Also, if a beacon doesn’t have a built-in navigation receiver, the NOAA satellite won’t be able to locate it since the beacon can’t encode and transmit its position.
Additionally, these low-Earth orbit satellites may also be blocked from detecting a signal when it’s transmitted in difficult terrain.
What’s the answer?
What are rescue services doing to improve the current COSPAS-SARSAT system to make it more reliable and more responsive? In next week’s post we discuss in detail the next generation of emergency rescue services, utilizing the most up-to-date GPS technology. Subscribe to our feed to make sure you don’t miss it!
October 25th, 2011 at 3:27 am
Hey…I just signed up for your feed but the second part of your article on cospas-sarsat problems must be out there somewhere- the date on the article I read above is JUNE 17th! Heck, it’s the middle of October 2011. Can you point me to the follow-up article (that has, I hope, suggestions to better solutions).
Thanks. Great writing- short, succinct, to the point, and well organized. I love anyone who doesn’t waste my time and gives me straight information. Great job. I’m dying to see part 2.
JD Keefe
Helioneer Company
Garden City NY
October 25th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
thanks JD, appreciate the feedback – the follow-up article is http://gpssystems.net/gps-emergency-systems-dass/ … ill update the post to link to it. thanks again for stopping by!