The Dutch Ministry of Defense deploys Globalstar SPOT Gen4 to track and ensure the safety of paratroopers | VanillaMore

Dublin, Ireland – February 2, 2022 – Globalstar Europe Satellite Services Ltda wholly owned subsidiary of Globalstar Inc., announces that the Netherlands Ministry of Defense (MoD) deployed 120 SPOT Gen4 satellite GPS messengers to track and ensure the safety of skydivers.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense has carried out extensive testing and trials of SPOT Gen4. The device has proven to be the ideal solution for the MoD’s needs and capable of delivering superior and reliable performance in all the very harsh environments that paratroopers face.

Niels is an instructor at the Dutch Defense Paratrooper School (DPS) and responsible for safety and quality. “In the places where we do our skydiving training, in remote mountainous and desert regions around the world, conventional telecommunications networks are unreliable,” shares Niels. “So we knew we needed a solution based on satellite technology.”

Other technologies and solutions have been tested and evaluated. For example, four years ago the organization purchased GPS trackers from another vendor. However, these used 3G telecommunications technology and were soon dismissed as unable to provide sufficient coverage and reliability.

Dealing with extremes of terrain and temperature

It is essential for operational teams that SPOT Gen4 performs perfectly in very extreme conditions. Paratrooper training is grueling and inherently dangerous. Military personnel engage in drills that see them jump out of airplanes at any time of the day or night, in any climate, with full military gear. Skydiving in the dark requires the addition of night vision equipment to the necessary gear of service personnel.

Dutch paratroopers undergo international training in a wide range of harsh operational environments. Parachuting exercises are conducted in the rugged mountains of Switzerland, France and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in locations in the North American Rockies. Desert operations training takes place in the vast plains of Arizona and California as well as Europe, all remote locations where conventional terrestrial communications networks cannot reliably reach.

“If the navigation were to go wrong either in the plane or by the skydiver, without a reliable tracer, it could take us a very long time to locate the user,” explains Niels.

In addition to skydiving in remote locations, skydivers must endure extreme temperatures. Teams performing winter skydiving exercises in Scandinavia routinely endure -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees F) dropping to -60 degrees Celsius (-76 degrees F) at very high altitude, from where the skydiver must jump carrying a reserve of oxygen.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense gained confidence in the effectiveness of SPOT following the referral and recommendation from its Belgian counterpart, explains Niels.

“We often work in cooperation with the Belgian school of parachutists on training programs; they were already using SPOT and informed us that the Globalstar SPOT system is very reliable and can be trusted to perform well in the very difficult situations we face,” he says.

Some army and marine parachute teams have a separate radio communication system, which can be connected to GPS via satellite, but this solution is expensive and not universally available to all operational units, explains Niels. .

SPOT’s reliable connectivity, enabled by Globalstar’s fleet of low Earth orbit satellites, was the overriding factor in the Department of Defense’s procurement decision. The ease of use of SPOT, especially in the intense context of skydiving use, was also decisive. “The system should be practical and very easy to use,” explains Niels.

“SPOT’s reliability and ease of use are outstanding features for us; we know we can trust SPOT to work anytime, anywhere,” he adds.

SPOT Gen4 – the latest generation of the SPOT family

SPOT Gen4, launched in EMEA in August 2020, is the latest member of Globalstar’s SPOT family of devices. It offers improved mapping interfaces, more display options, better water resistance and geolocation, among other improvements.

Like its predecessors, SPOT Gen4 features a one-touch SOS button that instantly sends the user’s GPS coordinates to either FocusPoint International Inc. or an organization’s operations and/or security teams, depending on the customer’s preferred configuration.

SPOT Gen4’s buttons can be flexibly configured to send pre-programmed messages, with options for transmission types. Users can connect with colleagues via the OK button and SPOT can be used for other non-urgent communication using the Help button.

SPOT devices are credited with more than 8,000 rescues worldwide to date.

“We are extremely proud that the Dutch Ministry of Defense has chosen SPOT Gen4 to support paratroopers in their critical training,” said Mark O’Connell, Managing Director EMEA and APAC at Globalstar.

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