Space based SAR?

[Spencer100]

Buying something from MDA for SAR to do with space.  Sorry I don't even iunderstand this one.  Can someone help?

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/202498/canada-orders-new-space_based-search-and-rescue-kit.html

 

[dimsum]

Basically, when a SAR beacon (personal, ship or aircraft) goes off, the repeater that's on the satellite will receive it and transmit to a ground station.  The location will be found faster, because terrain and line-of-sight issues will be minimized, and SAR assets will be dispatched more quickly.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Yup, and this will increase the...'coverage' so to speak and add another layer for SAR beacon detection;

Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates Corporation (MDA) of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, to design, build and deliver 10 search and rescue repeaters for National Defence’s Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) system.

As part of an agreement between National Defence and the United States Air Force (USAF), the Canadian repeaters will be hosted on USAF’s next-generation GPS satellites.

COSPAS-SARSAT was designed using LEOSAR and GEOSAR:

The Cospas-Sarsat System includes two types of satellites:
•satellites in low-altitude Earth orbit (LEO) which form the LEOSAR System
•satellites in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) which form the GEOSAR System

The future Cospas-Sarsat System will include a new type of satellite in the medium-altitude Earth orbit (MEO) which will form the MEOSAR System.

* there is a decent basic explanation of LEO/MEO/GEO stuff...if you find it interesting, you might find the Basic Space Operations course the CAF offers interesting.

 

[Spencer100]

Thanks I think I get it now.  Interesting that Canada gets to piggy back on the US sats.  I think that's great.  I would think we couldn"t do this by ourselves.  Nice to have friends

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Canada is one of the four founding members of the COSPAS-SARSAT program;  from the Basic Space Ops Course, Model 17 - SARSAT:

"This programme was initially developed under a 1979 Memorandum of Understanding among agencies of the USSR, USA, Canada and France.

Following the successful completion of the demonstration and evaluation phase begun in 1982, a second Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 5 October 1984 by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France, the Department of National Defence (DND) of Canada, the Ministry of Merchant Marine (MORFLOT) of the former USSR and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the USA. The system was declared operational in 1985."

Many countries that are not "space lift countries" (countries that currently have or that have had launch sites to put payloads into space) contribute to COSPAS-SARSAT, either in the space or ground portions;  we are one of the countries that don't launch but contribute to the space and ground segments, with the Canadian MCC (Mission Control Center) located in Trenton.

 

[Journeyman]

Damn, I was looking forward to seeing SAR Techs as Felix Baumgartner. 

 

[observor 69]

For those of us not current on Felix Baumgartner 

An Austrian daredevil plummeted into the record books today (Oct. 14), breaking the mark for highest-ever skydive after leaping from a balloon more than 24 miles above Earth's surface. Add one more feat: Going supersonic.

More at:  https://www.space.com/17961-supersonic-skydive-worlds-highest-space-jump.html

 

[dimsum]

Damn, I was looking forward to seeing SAR Techs as Felix Baumgartner. 

Great.  Their egos will be even bigger than they are now.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I was involved in the first EPRIB rescue on this coast. Guy was on a fundraiser trip around Vancouver Island by Canoe late Sept/Oct (sigh) He got smashed onto the rocks at Brooks Peninsula with a broken leg. He had been loaned an early 406/121.5 EPRIB. He turned it on, first satellite picked up a 406 signal and alerted that it was West Coast Canada, 2nd hit narrowed it to West Coast Vancouver Island, we were tasked and steamed out of Tahis. On the way 3rd hit narrowed it to Brooks Peninsula. When we closed to 15nm we started picking up the 121.5 on our DF, it brought us right to him. As there was no beach. My buddy and I swan into the rocks and we bundled him into a survival suit and the boat dragged us out through the surf. It was amazing to be involved in such a rescue that involved almost no Search and we could purely focus on rescue. Without that beacon, he could have been there for a week and possibly died and the search would have consumed 100's of man hours in ship and aircraft time. That one EPRIB likley saved the government 1/4-1/2 of a million dollars in search costs.     

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I was involved in the first EPRIB rescue on this coast. Guy was on a fundraiser trip around Vancouver Island by Canoe late Sept/Oct (sigh) He got smashed onto the rocks at Brooks Peninsula with a broken leg. He had been loaned an early 406/121.5 EPRIB. He turned it on, first satellite picked up a 406 signal and alerted that it was West Coast Canada, 2nd hit narrowed it to West Coast Vancouver Island, we were tasked and steamed out of Tahis. On the way 3rd hit narrowed it to Brooks Peninsula. When we closed to 15nm we started picking up the 121.5 on our DF, it brought us right to him. As there was no beach. My buddy and I swan into the rocks and we bundled him into a survival suit and the boat dragged us out through the surf. It was amazing to be involved in such a rescue that involved almost no Search and we could purely focus on rescue. Without that beacon, he could have been there for a week and possibly died and the search would have consumed 100's of man hours in ship and aircraft time. That one EPRIB likley saved the government 1/4-1/2 of a million dollars in search costs.   

That's a pretty awesome story...how was the ride thru the surf?  I bet it will sound more fun than it was!

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We didn't have our rescue swimmer program fully up and running, so the swim in was in survival suits, think Gumby goes surfing. We had harnesses with a line to the boat that we wore going in. When we were ready the boat pulls you backward through the surf.