Maritime Safety

Jotron offers a range of maritime emergency beacons to global suppliers. The development of their new beacons received financial support from the Norwegian Space Agency and assistance from ESA's SRIN program.

These emergency beacons utilize Galileo Return Link to confirm the reception of the emergency message. In this process, the satellites in the European navigation system Galileo transmit the signal from distress beacons to rescue coordination centers within the international Cospas-Sarsat system.

The emergency bacons were testen during a rescue drill at Svalbard in 2021. Upon activation of the emergency signal, it took just a matter of seconds for the confirmation message to be received.

According to Jotron, the response function is just a first step towards the significant communication possibilities offered by the Galileo system.

It has the potential to transmit a range of information during an emergency, such as the number of individuals on board the vessel, their injury status, or the total number of lifeboats available on the ship.

All ships above a certain size are required to have emergency beacons on board, which must be maintained and replaced at regularly.