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| Photo courtesy COSPAS-SARSAT |
OBSERVATIONS FROM SCOTLAND 28 May 2008 GM1SXX
CORRECTION!
It seems my rambling re the COSPAS/SATSAT birds are in error.
The current COSPAS-SARSAT system makes use of a number of birds in LEO plus several others in Geostationary orbit. The first COSPAS/SARSAT birds were launched in the early 80's but the system has evolved into a LEO (LEOSAR) plus Geostationary (GEOSAR) system at the current time.
The information on the system that's available on the web is inconsistent, flaky and conflicting, but it seems that the Geostationary part of the system (GEOSAR) comprises several GOES birds, an Indian GEOSATs plus a Meteosat while the LEO orbit part of the system (LEOSAR) is now flown aboard NOAA weather satellites. This represents a change from the earlier system. I imagine that the system will continue to evolve as old satellites fail and new ones are launched.
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| Photo courtesy COSPAS-SARSAT |
The GEOSAR segment consists of GOES-9, GOES-East, GOES-West, INSAT3A & MSG-2.
The LEOSAR part of the system in general consists of two Russian LEO's and a larger number of US NOAA birds.
The status of the COSPAS-SARSAT birds are available online at cospas-sarsat_Status
The Local User Terminals LUTs collect data from the LEO birds while other groundstations GEOLUTs collect data from the Geostationary birds.
73 Al.
GM1SXX
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