On April 28, Dr. Lisa Mazzuca, search and rescue office chief, NASA; and Thomas Renkevens, satellite products and services division chief, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, visited the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency Headquarters on Fort Belvoir, Va. They met with Col. Anne-Marie Contrera, JPRA director; and JPRA staff, to discuss NASA’s second-generation emergency beacons, the Satellite-aided Search and Rescue, or SARSAT, program.

As a chairman-controlled activity of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, JPRA facilitates personnel recovery stakeholder activities across the Defense Department and between agencies. Beacon and reporting technology is of primary interest to JPRA, as a means to continually advance its support to isolated personnel.

Satellite-aided Search and Rescue

The SARSAT program is an international organization that provides space-based relay of distress signals, or alerts, from emergency beacons that use the 406 megahertz frequency, and provides alerts to search and rescue authorities, globally. The original, satellite-aided search and rescue architecture has long since provided capability for aviators and sailors. However, NASA recently identified a need for quicker response times and more accurate location data than the original system could accommodate.

Last week’s meeting was organized by JPRA’s Steven Kelly and a JPRA technology and national security fellow, Hamna Khan, a researcher focused on 406 MHz emergency distress beacon technologies.

Along with NASA and NOAA, JPRA invited members from the U.S. Coast Guard SARSAT Program; the Army’s Personnel Recovery Branch; key policy representatives from the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.

Past meetings at JPRA headquarters promoted collaborative conversations on the future of emergency beacon technologies within the DoD. In particular, Mazzuca and her team from NASA’s Search and Rescue Office, shared the latest technology developments for 406 MHz emergency distress beacons and discussed the possibilities and challenges ahead for the emergency distress beacon ecosystem.

Next Steps

JPRA will continue advocating next-generation emergency beacons throughout the Joint Staff for additional research and development; and define joint requirements. JPRA looks to assist in any formal acquisition activities to take advantage of emerging SARSAT technologies, as a means to help the military with personnel recovery capabilities.