ON THE 29TH SESSION OF THE COSPAS-SARSAT COUNCIL

Unofficial translation from Russian

PRESS RELEASE

The 29th session of the Council of the intergovernmental COSPAS-SARSAT International Program - an international satellite system receiving SOS signals and determining the location of those in distress at sea, on land or in the air - took place in Washington from October 10 to 17. The program bears a humanitarian character: distress coordinates are transmitted to search and rescue authorities at different points of the planet free of charge for users in an emergency.

During the session the Council summed up the results of the activity of COSPAS-SARSAT, and examined questions relating to the fulfillment by participants of their obligations, the further development of the Program, and the creation in COSPAS-SARSAT of an International Radiobeacons Registration Database. It also took a decision to confirm to the depositaries of the COSPAS-SARSAT Agreement - the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) - the wish of Parties to continue their cooperation in running and developing the system and a renewal in this connection of the Agreement, whose 15-year term of validity expires on August 30, 2003, for another successive period of five years. The scale of Program activities has considerably increased over the past years. Thirty-one more countries and two organizations have joined the founder states (USSR/Russia, the USA, Canada and France) who committed themselves to maintain both the Space and Ground Segments of the System. Most of the Parties ensure the functioning of the ground infrastructure. India is getting ready to become an official Space Segment Provider; it joined COSPAS-SARSAT in 1991 as a state maintaining the Ground Segment. In the stage of transfer onto a practical plane is cooperation with the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. Possibilities are being explored for cooperation with the GLONASS, GPS and GALILEO navigation systems.

COSPAS-SARSAT enjoys merited authority in the International Maritime Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Telecommunications Union, with which it coordinates its activities.

A remarkable event was noted in the course of the session - the 20th anniversary of the launching of the first spacecraft, which marked the beginning of the satellite system of the Program (it was the Soviet satellite COSPAS 1) and the carrying out of the first rescue operation (the search for missing pilots in British Columbia, Canada) in which the distress alert data received through COSPAS-SARSAT were used. Many of those who stood at the origins of the creation of the System took part in the anniversary celebrations.

The importance of the Program is difficult to overestimate: more than 14,000 people have been saved with its help. The satellite system COSPAS-SARSAT covers vast areas of the Earth, and the acquisition of a radiobeacon permitting location of those in distress is affordable to an ordinary citizen.

The Program was commenced back in the times of the Cold War. It was conducted also in the 1990s despite the difficulties Russia was then experiencing. The Program is a graphic example of successful cooperation between the West and East and between the North and South, having combined their efforts for saving the most important and indisputable value - human life.

October 22, 2002