• 11,441 worldwide rescues • 4,181 U.S. rescues

 NOAA's contributions to SARSAT - Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking - are saving lives on land, sea and air. Unthinkable before the space age, NOAA's earth-observing satellites now carry SARSAT technology that can pick up distress signals anywhere on the globe. The satellites can detect signals from emergency beacons carried by boaters, flyers, hikers, and many others who might be hit by sudden danger. In February, the signal from an emergency beacon in Alaska led NOAA's U.S. Mission Control Center in Suitland, Maryland to alert an Alaskan search and rescue team. With coordinates identified by the control center, a helicopter team found three hunters stranded in the snow and hoisted them to safety. With average daytime highs in the minus teens, and wind chill below minus 60 degrees, the hunters faced life or death.

Just months before, a sailboat in the Atlantic flipped over in 25-foot seas and 40-mile an hour winds. There was no time to issue a mayday call. But the three-member crew did activate their emergency beacon. A SARSAT satellite detected the beacon and relayed the signal to NOAA's ground station in Puerto Rico. Fifteen minutes later, an alert from the control center was in the hands of the Coast Guard in Norfolk, Virginia. Within an hour, the crew was safely on a rescue helicopter. Total time from beacon signal to successful rescue was less than two hours - a dramatic improvement since the days before SARSAT when it might have been weeks before the Coast Guard even knew about the potentially tragic accident.

In our country, over 300 lives are saved each year. Every country benefits from the program. Thirty-three countries are formally associated with it. NOAA operates the satellites, which also work to accurately provide environmental and weather observations. These satellites carry SARSAT technology (called payloads), which come from Canada and France. Russia operates similar instruments called COSPAS aboard its own satellites. Together, COPAS- SARSAT work together as an international cooperative search and rescue effort. In time, space equipment to detect emergency beacons will also come from Europe and India.

Ajay Mehta manages SARSAT at NESDIS, NOAA's National Environmental, Satellite, Data and Information Service. Along with William Burkhart (operations lead), Rick Vizbulis (technical lead), and an excellent 29-member team, Ajay works closely with the Coast Guard, Air Force and NASA. NOAA operates the satellites and ground systems. The Air Force and Coast Guard handle rescue and search operations. NASA conducts research and development.

Visit the NOAA SARSAT web site at http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov.