The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), within the framework of the United Nations Program on Space Applications, will hold a five-day training course on the International Satellite System for Search and Rescue (Cospas-Sarsat) with the Department of Transport of the Republic of South Africa. The training course, to take place in Cape Town from Nov. 20-24, 2006, will brief representatives of South African government institutions on practical, cost-effective, space-based programs currently available through the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system.

Cospas-Sarsat is a satellite and ground system designed to help search and rescue operations at sea, in the air or on land. The system uses emergency beacons (approximately 1 million installed on maritime, air and land vehicles) which send distress signals and location information to satellites which transmit the information to search-and-rescue centers which pass information to rescue teams.

Founded in the late 1970s by Canada, France, the Soviet Union and the United States, the system started operating in 1982. Since then it has assisted in saving more than 20,000 persons in over 5,000 distress situations.