Australian space research centre, the Smart Satellite Cooperative Research Centre (SmartSat CRC) is to collaborate with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre to advance satellite communications for disaster communications.
The SmartSat CRC says the collaboration will help to build Australia’s space industry by developing leading edge technology and expertise with the Australian partners in the project: the University of South Australia, Safety from Space, Myriota, Black Art Technologies, Flinders University, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
A SmartSat CRC research team, led by Safety from Space’s co-founder Dr Mark Rice, will propose new designs for the waveform of the 406MHz signal sent by beacons through the Cospas-Sarsat network, the international satellite system that detect and relays distress alert transmissions from radio beacons.
Dr Rice said the new designs would modernise second-generation beacons, taking advantage of encoding techniques not available when the Cospas-Sarsat network was developed in the 1970s.
“This will enable possibilities for new initiatives for users, emergency management professionals and first responders,” he said.
Copas-Sarsat enhancements planned
Myriota CEO and cofounder Dr Alex Grant said current search and rescue emergency beacons could be unreliable because of a lack of messaging integration and a high rate of false alarms.
“We anticipate that the research collaboration between the SmartSat CRC, NASA and Myriota will lead to the development of technology that will provide a much more targeted service than what is currently available, and give first responders greater confidence and access to crucial information in emergency situations,” he said.
SmartSat CRC says future collaboration could support exploration initiatives like the Artemis missions, which will return humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo missions.
NASA plans to equip Artemis astronauts with second-generation Cospas-Sarsat beacons for use in the event of egress from capsule after splashdown or a launch failure.
NASA’s search and rescue team is working to extend beacon services to the lunar surface with the LunaNet communications and navigation architecture.
