Isro search & rescue service helped save 2.3k lives in 164 incidents; Pawan Hans chopper traced in 6 mins | India News

BENGALURU: Alarm at Isro Command, Track and Telemetry Network (Istrac) mission control center powered by satellite SAR (search and rescue) in Bengaluru began to erupt at 12.20pm on Tuesday. The distress signal was from a beacon on the Pawan Hans helicopter, which was forced to make an emergency landing in waters more than 100 kilometers off the coast of Mumbai.
In six minutes – exactly at 12:26pm – an Indian satellite tracked the helicopter and sent back information with specific details about its location to the controller, after That was transferred to rescue teams, who acted quickly to rescue all nine passengers. But four of them died later.
Isro’s six-minute surgery on Tuesday was not a missing incident. Satellite-based search and rescue services provided by the space agency have saved more than 2,350 lives in connection with 164 incidents since 1991, while 231 lives have been lost despite the great loss. effort.
These include incidents involving seven nearby countries – Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Seychelles and Tanzania – that Isro helps.
India is a member of the International Cospas-Sarsat program (a global satellite-assisted search and rescue initiative) to provide location and incident warning services through the low earth orbit search and rescue system (LEOSAR) and geostationary orbit SAR satellite system (GEOSAR).
“Isro joined Cospas-Sarsat in the 1990s and began providing services to maritime and aviation users as well as those in distress. Access is provided to all states on a non-discriminatory basis and is free to end users. Since its inception, Isro’s India Mission Control Center (INMCC) has contributed to saving more than 2,300 lives across India’s mission control service area,” BN Ramakrishna, director of Istrac, told TOI.
A source said personnel from the Indian navy, air force and coast guard – the last teams to carry out rescue operations – are periodically oriented and trained at Istrac in Bengaluru, helping them carry out the SAR. .
How it works
The INMCC consists of a mission control center (MCC), a local user terminal (LUT), and a signaling subscription database service.
All beacon users in India must register their beacons along with their personal information – used by rescue coordination centers for rescue operations – on the INMCC website hosted by Istrac. As of today, 1,048 Indian users have subscribed to 18,501 beacons.
According to Istrac, the signals collected by INMCC from these distress signals are classified into three types: Emergency locating transmitters (ELTs) for aviation; emergency position radio beacons (EPIRBs) for marine use and personal locator beacons (PLBs) for personal use.
The beacons operate at 406MHz, and the SAR payload on low-altitude, geostationary, and mid-altitude orbit satellites detect the signals transmitted by them.
Ground receiving stations – local user terminals – spread across the world receive and process satellite downlink signals to generate incident alerts. A network of MCCs established worldwide will then be used to disseminate incident alerts and location information to SAR authorities.
Ramakrishna added that INMCC has a key role in providing incident warning information to the SAR Point of Contacts (SPOC) of seven neighboring countries. “INMCC receives incident alert data relating to these countries through LUTs and other MCCs. These alerts are disseminated to their respective rescue coordination centers.”