Thales has been selected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop and build an operational ground station at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, to track Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites operating in medium Earth orbit (MEO), the company announced on 15 October.
The ground station will receive and process 406MHz distress beacon signals from the MEO satellites and relay them to the US Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) programme’s Mission Control Center (USMCC), via US government communication links, for validation and distribution to rescue authorities. This ground station will be designated the NOAA Southwest USA Medium-Earth Orbit Local User Terminal (MEOLUT)and will be an integral part of the MEO-based ground system operated by the USMCC.
The station will work in conjunction with operational MEOLUTs in Honolulu and Miami on a 24/7 basis.
The MEO system, which provides distress alert and location data for SAR authorities in near real-time, uses spacecraft and ground facilities to detect and locate signals from the 406MHz distress beacons.
Philippe Blatt, VP, navigation France at Thales Alenia Space, said: ‘We are confident that our solution will meet and exceed NOAA SARSAT’s expectations, and provide decisive help to the UASA region. Today, MEOLUT Next is the only solution in the world capable of processing second-generation beacons in real time.’
The airborne three-domain, the two ground-based and the ¼ ATR OpenVPX-based cross-domain systems were engineered to provide real-time security across multi-domain operations.
DARPA’s Mission-Integrated Network Control (MINC) programme was set up to develop an autonomous tactical network and enable critical data flow in contested environments.
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Defence-secure mixed reality headsets can save hours, or even weeks, of travel time to fix defunct equipment or get subject experts effectively “on-site” where they are needed.
The Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) and Drone Restricted Access Using Known Electromagnetic Warfare (DRAKE) counter-UAS (CUAS) systems are mounted and dismounted RF jammers.
Adarga’s Vantage information analysis tool is in service with the UK MoD and individual UK forces. It builds on the company’s Knowledge Platform which processes, organises and analyses open source material, as well as information held by the user’s military, security and intelligence services.
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