Asia Pacific’s first MEOSAR station
French-owned McMurdo Group, has announced that it has completed the installation of a six-antenna next-generation Medium-Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) satellite ground station system in New Zealand.
MEOSAR is the next-generation version of Cospas-Sarsat, the international search and rescue satellite system that has helped to save 37,000 lives since 1982.
The project, which is part of a joint initiative with Maritime New Zealand and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, is expected to significantly boost search and rescue capability in the New Zealand and Australia search regions and marks the first implementation of MEOSAR in Asia Pacific.
“This key installation firmly establishes McMurdo as the premier MEOSAR infrastructure provider globally,” said Remi Julien, McMurdo President.
In a typical satellite-based search and rescue scenario, ships, aircraft or individuals transmit distress signals from an emergency location beacon via satellite to a fixed ground receiving station or local user terminal. The ground station receives and calculates the location of the distress signal and creates and sends an alert to the appropriate rescue authorities. Today, the beacon-to-alert process depends on a limited number of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and may take several hours before a position is confirmed. With MEOSAR, beacon signals will be received more quickly and beacon locations identified with greater accuracy thereby reducing this time to minutes.
The New Zealand MEOSAR system, and another being installed in Western Australia, will cover one of the largest search and rescue areas in the world – from north of Australia/New Zealand to the Equator and south to the South Pole, east to half way across the Pacific, and west half way across the Indian Ocean.
By Jake Frith
