APPLICATION OF A SATELLITE AIDED SEARCH AND RESCUE SYSTEM TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) has the capability of providing both an immediate alert and a homing signal to assist rescue forces in locating the site of the distress. To be effective an EPIRB signal must be detected. The satellite system proposed in this paper would be capable of detecting and locating EPIRBs operating at 121.5 and 243 MHz, as well as improved/new EPIRBs operating on the 406 MHz frequency authorized for ground to satellite SAR use by the last World Administrative Radio Conference. The baseline concept envisions launching the search and rescue system as instruments on the NASA/NOAA and USAF operational weather satellites at approximately 482 nm in near polar orbits. The EPIRBs will transmit their signals to the orbiting spacecraft. The spacecraft will relay the signals in real time to an earth station which will detect the signal using phase lock techniques and process the Doppler information to determine position location. This data will then be relayed to the nearest rescue coordination center where the search and rescue forces will be alerted and deployed.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at RTCM Assembly Meeting, April 18-21, 1977, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
• Corporate Authors:

  Radio Technical Commission for Marine Services

  /Federal Communications Commission
  Washington, DC  United States  20554
• Authors:
  • Wilder, F N
  • Trudell, B J
• Publication Date: 1977

Media Info

• Pagination: 20 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Artificial satellites; Distress alerting systems; Distress signals; Doppler radar; Emergency radio equipment; Position fixing; Radio beacons; Search and rescue operations
• Old TRIS Terms: Distress communications; Position finding; Satellite systems
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00178697
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Radio Technical Commission for Marine Services
• Report/Paper Numbers: V2, Pap 105-77/DO-97
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 29 1978 12:00AM