McMurdo Awarded $6m in New SAR Contracts

Techno-Sciences, Inc. (TSi), the recently-acquired company of McMurdo Group, the end-to-end search and rescue (SAR) and maritime domain awareness division of Orolia (NYSE Alternext Paris – FR0010501015 – ALORO), today announced that is has been selected by the Governments of Cyprus, Brunei, Argentina and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States to deploy their SAR network infrastructure solutions and next-generation MEOSAR (Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue) systems, totaling nearly €5 million ($6 million).

The wins fortify McMurdo Group’s global SAR leadership and include the deployment of a 6-channel MEOSAR system in South America, a 2-channel MEOSAR extension in the US and Rescue Coordination Center (RCC) software for a European and Asian SAR authority. The contracts, some of which including maintenance, are expected to be completed over the next 1 to 5 years depending on the customer.

McMurdo Group’s TSi customers now include major MEOSAR installations in Europe, the only MEOSAR installations in the United States (NOAA Miami, NOAA Hawaii and NASA Goddard) and most recently a €13 million ($15 million) MEOSAR contract for Australia/New Zealand.

“McMurdo Group has established itself as the leader in MEOSAR next-generation search and rescue systems with key milestone wins in critical search and rescue regions of the world,” said Jean-Yves Courtois, CEO of Orolia and McMurdo Group. “We are excited to work with the governmental bodies and rescue authorities of these countries to provide advanced SAR solutions that will expedite the rescue process and save more lives,” he added.

In a typical search and rescue scenario a distress beacon signal is relayed via satellite to Mission Control Centers and Rescue Coordination Centers for eventual rescue team deployment. McMurdo Group provides the satellite ground stations and both Mission Control Center and Rescue Coordination Center hardware and software solutions.

TSi, which was acquired by McMurdo Group in May 2014, has been instrumental in the development of the COSPAS-SARSAT international satellite-based SAR program, which has helped to save nearly 37,000 lives worldwide since 1982. The company has been actively involved in MEOSAR, the next-generation COSPAS-SARSAT system, which will greatly improve the existing SAR process with near-instantaneous detection, identification and location of emergency distress beacons.

MEOSAR, currently in its demonstration and evaluation phase, is expected to have initial operational capability in 2016 and full operational capability by 2018.