By Peter J. Brown

Hats off to India for taking a very ambitious step forward in the early 21st century with its decision to launch Edusat, which, at least at press time, is scheduled to fly in the second half of this month.

It is indeed uplifting to see a country that not only sees that it has a pressing national need and that this requires urgent attention, but that the solution involves deploying an innovative multimedia-capable public service platform in space.

If we were to somehow issue a "Demonstrated Commitment To Public Service Via Satellite Award" in 2004, the Edusat team in India would win it in an instant.

This team of Indian government officials including many at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) who conceived Edusat, are determined to take advantage of a combination of C-band and Ku-band links to take distance learning to the next level.

Does anyone know what became of the similar Edsat initiative here in the United States? It certainly did not make its way to the launch pad like Edusat.

Edusat will launch at a time when satellite technology is being tapped by other teams in India and elsewhere for a variety of purposes. Take, for example, the revolutionary satellite-based malaria early warning system, which has been conceived by NASA’s Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville, AL, and India’s Malaria Research Center along with researchers at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, among others. Using GIS mapping technology along with a mix of highresolution satellite images and medium-resolution satellite data from satellites like Ikonos, QuickBird, and Landsat 7 as well as the sensor known as MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectrometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the goal is to extract vital information about mosquito populations from imagery and data generated by satellite surveillance of the terrain, the rainfall and the vegetation.

By combining it with ground data, this comprehensive system could enable public health officials and teams of public health outreach workers to activate such things as vaccination programs, and site-specific spraying in any zone where an outbreak threatens the surrounding population and doing so before the outbreak occurs.

Writing this column on the day after the remnants of Hurricane Charley depart the U.S. East Coast, I am saddened by the news of so many deaths in Florida. Still, the successful evacuation of hundreds of thousands was carried out at least in part because the path of Hurricane Charley was closely monitored in real time by satellite. Time after time, satellites perform a vital public service mission and save lives. In a recent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Situation Update dated July 16, 2004, FEMA reported that NOAA satellites helped to save 54 lives between April and June, 2004. NOAA officials credit the increasing use of 406-MHz emergency beacons in the form of Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs) for mariners, along with aircraft equipped with Emergency Locator Transmitters, or ELTs, and hand-carried Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs). All of these beacons function together as part of the global Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System, (COSPAS-SARSAT). SARSAT depends upon NOAA’s polar-orbiting and GEO satellites which relay distress signal data to NOAA’s U.S. Mission Control Center in Suitland, MD., and in turn triggers a response by the U.S. Coast Guard or other agencies. This is the good news. And there is more.

In a remarkable display of GPS-enabled orbit phasing and self-navigation, all four of the microsatellites that make up the multinational Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), coordinated by UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., are up and flying in their assigned 686-kilometer orbit stations. Each of these DMC microsats has a projected five-year life span, and provides adjacent imaging passes over the surface of the Earth in a pattern that permits consistent coverage at least every 24 hours of a disaster anywhere in the world.

Edusat, SARSAT and DMC are among the public service projects that make the satellite industry so important, above and beyond the vital communications, newsgathering and broadcast functions that are so much a part of the industry’s daily routine. And from the perspective of an evolving multimedia realm, we are poised to do much more as we continue to figure out what in general is needed both in space and on the ground to further this good cause.

The task is far from finished, and we must recognize the fact that much more can be done. Distance learning aside, in many respects, the satellite industry is the only player that can provide a full end-to-end solution where real-time surveillance, remote sensing and monitoring capabilities can be tied directly to a broadcast engine geared for alerts and warnings, which can target specific geographic areas. In turn, this could enable the simultaneous transmission of ancillary GIS information over a robust link handling multiple Voice over IP circuits for incident managers on scene as well.

Is it a challenge to make these kinds of emergency response systems universally available? You bet. Can anyone outside the satellite sector even come close to offering such highly mobile, reliable and yet easily managed solutions? We see nobody else out there on our radar screen.

Peter J. Brown is Via Satellite’s Senior Multimedia & Homeland Security Editor. He also volunteers as a satellite technology and communications advisor to the Maine Emergency Management Agency.