A trio of stations has taken shape on three islands at the far  corners of our continent, ready to pick up distress calls via satellite  from all across Europe and its surrounding waters.     

   The ground network for Galileo’s  search and rescue service has now passed a major exam, coming a step  closer to saving lives. These stations sit on Spitsbergen in the  Norwegian Arctic, Maspalomas on the largest island of Spain’s  Canary Islands, and Larnaca on the island nation of Cyprus, forming a  triangle enclosing Europe. The three are coordinated and overseen from a  control centre in Toulouse, France.   

   Each site is equipped with  four antennas to detect distress calls relayed via satellites in  medium-altitude orbits, so far including 14 GPS satellites, two European  Galileos and one Russian Glonass.   

  The  three stations are interlinked to operate jointly, so that all 12  antennas can track satellites together. A summer of testing has  confirmed the heightened efficiency of this approach.   

 “This new search  and rescue infrastructure, designed by ESA and financed by the EU as  part of Galileo, is our contribution to the Cospas–Sarsat system, the world’s oldest and largest satellite-aided rescue system,” explains ESA’s Fermin Alvarez Lopez. 

Extending Europe’s search and rescue cover

  Founded by Canada, France, the USSR and the US, Cospas–Sarsat  is a global satellite system for rapidly detecting distress calls to be  forwarded to local search and rescue authorities. Since its creation in  1979, it has helped to rescue more than 35 000 people.–Sarsat systemCospas–Sarsat  distress beacons can be bought off the shelf, then activated by anyone  in distress on land, in the air or on the sea. Satellite repeaters pick  up and amplify the beacon signals, then transmit them down to ground  stations. 

Cospas–Sarsat system