Maspalomas MEOLUT

The ESA-built Maspalomas Medium-Earth Orbit Local User Terminal (MEOLUT) on Gran Canaria, part of an extension of the international Cospas-Sarsat search and rescue programme into medium-Earth orbit, spearheaded by Galileo. Each site is equipped with four antennas to track four satellites. There are three sites in all: Maspalomas and Spitsbergen will combine with a third station at Larnaca in Cyprus, currently approaching completion. These three sites are monitored and controlled from the SAR Ground Segment Data Service Provider site, based at Toulouse in France. The stations are networked to share raw data, effectively acting as a single huge 12-antenna station, achieving unprecedented detection time and localisation accuracy in relaying search and rescue signals to local authorities.