Mission control centre (Cospas-Sarsat)

Within the Cospas-Sarsat programme, Mission control centres (MCCs) are responsible for receiving and distributing distress signal alerts from emergency position-indicating radiobeacon stations. MCCs are a core component of the international satellite based search and rescue system.

The functions of an MCC are:

• to collect, store and sort the data from local user terminals (LUTs) and other MCCs;
• to provide international and national data exchange within the Cospas-Sarsat system; and
• to distribute alert and location data to associated rescue coordination centres (RCCs) or SAR points of contact (SPOCs)

As of 13 May 2009, there are 29 MCCs around the world.