The COSPAS-SARSAT system

COSPAS-SARSAT is an international satellite system for search and rescue. It consists of a constellation of satellites in polar orbit and a network of earth stations which provide distress alert and location information to appropriate rescue authorities, anywhere in the world, for maritime, aviation and land users in distress. The author describes the system, looking at: the space segment; ground segment; beacons; 121.5 MHz local coverage; 406 MHz global coverage; and alert data distribution. The global system performance is reported following system waiting time and location acquisition probability experiments. Future developments and use for GMDSS, aviation and personal locator beacons are briefly discussed.