RELEASE NO: 98-150

 NASA TECHNOLOGY INSTRUMENTAL IN LIFE-SAVING

SARSAT search and rescue communications packages, conceptualized and developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., played a vital role in alerting the world that U.S. hot-air balloonist Steve Fossett, was in trouble after his balloon the "Solo-Spirit," fell into the southern Pacific Ocean during a severe storm as he was attempting to travel around the world.

On Aug. 18, a distress message from an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) was received via the search and rescue repeater package on the GOES-10 satellite shortly after activation at 1423 Greenwich Mean Time (3:23 a.m. local time at drop zone). The message was relayed via a ground station in Trenton, Ontario to the NOAA U.S. Mission Control Center (USMCC) in Suitland, Md. After a check of its registration database to determine the owner of the beacon, the USMCC notified the U.S. Coast Guard which alerted the Solo Spirit ground team.

The U.S. portion of the international program that made this possible is known as "SARSAT," for Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking. The system, known Internationally as COSPAS-SARSAT, includes Russian satellite instruments that operate in the same manner as the SARSAT ones. The SARSAT instruments are carried aboard the NOAA Polar and Geostationary-Orbiting series of environmental satellites, known as POES and GOES. When an EPIRB is activated by a marine vessel on the open sea, the SARSAT instruments receive the alert and transmits it to the appropriate search and rescue authorities, who undertake rescue operations.

"Although they knew the approximate position of the balloon at the time of the alert, it could not be pinpointed until about an hour and a half later when NOAA-14, a satellite of the POES constellation, also supplied by Goddard, flew over within view of Fossett and captured a "Doppler" fix on his location," said Ron Wallace, Search and Rescue Mission Manager, Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Fossett’s location was first found by the U.S. tracking station on Guam and the Australian station at Bundaberg, north of Brisbane. The location was quickly supplied to Australian search and rescue authorities who coordinated the search. Aircraft and ships from France, New Caledonia, Australia and New Zealand were involved in the operation," he said.

In the early 1970s, Goddard performed experiments to determine whether or not it was possible for satellites to accurately locate transmitters on the ground. The theories were verified using data buoys and ground radio beacons transmitting to a NASA Nimbus-3 satellite receiver, and the principle later was applied to search and rescue.

Some twenty-nine nations are now participating in the program providing both ground and space segment equipment, and it is used worldwide. A constellation of low polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites are used to detect and locate emergency beacons on aircraft and vessels in distress. More than eight thousand persons have been saved because of the satellite system, in both aviation and maritime incidents, since the first space instrument was launched in 1982.

NASA Goddard is responsible for the construction, integration and launch of NOAA satellites. Operational control of the spacecraft is turned over to NOAA after it is checked out on orbit, normally 21 days after launch. The NOAA satellites carry seven scientific instruments and two for search and rescue.