[SatNews] The Luxembourg Government signed a new agreement with the Joint Undertaking (JU) between HITEC Luxembourg S.A. and SES TechCom S.A.—in partnership with Luxembourg Air Rescue—to extend the emergency.lu rapid response solution for a duration of six years.

emergency.lu is addressing the challenge of worldwide rapid response capacity and preparedness for humanitarian emergencies by providing a solution to fill the communication gap in the first hours and days after a large-scale disaster. The solution provides communication facilities in remote areas due to chronic humanitarian crises. It is being deployed since January 2012 following the initial contract signature in April 2011. Since then, emergency.lu has been productively deployed on multiple missions: South Sudan, Mali, Venezuela, Nepal, Philippines and lately in the Ebola prone regions in Africa. The emergency.lu solution is greatly appreciated by the international worldwide humanitarian community and has become an essential element in the disaster relief toolbox. 

The success of the emergency.lu system swayed the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to continue the service offering and also to extend the system. As such, the number of rapid deployment kits is being augmented by ten additional terminals. These devices are consisting of an inflatable antenna plus redesigned NoSaCo® Rapid terminals, which are entirely manufactured in the Grand Duchy by HITEC Luxembourg. These devices are making up the field infrastructure in case of natural or man-made disaster which require immediate intervention. The Grand Duchy is also investing in 30 new transportable or disposable antennas for long-term humanitarian missions to be used with HITEC Luxembourg’s new NoSaCo® Rack.

The satellite capacity used in emergency.lu to ensure a worldwide coverage is being extended. “On behalf of SES and as a member of the NSCF-emergency.lu joint undertaking, we are pleased to provide the Luxembourg Government and their development partners, among them the UN World Food Program, with a satellite-based communication infrastructure including satellite capacity and services that will ensure the availability of quick and reliable data and voice communications in disaster relief theaters,” said Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director of SES TechCom.

“emergency.lu shows the technical expertise of HITEC Luxembourg in both domains of satellite ground segment and of ICT. The extension of the agreement with the Luxembourg Ministry demonstrates the success of the developed solutions and proves that we have met the expectations of our client on reliability, resilience and quality of service demanded by the public safety and humanitarian aid community,” stated Yves Elsen, Managing Partner and CEO of HITEC Luxembourg.

Both Luxembourg based companies, SES and HITEC Luxembourg, are honoured to continue—together with Luxembourg Air Ambulance—the involvement in humanitarian aid and disaster relief through the continued agreement with the Luxembourg Government.

There's additional information regarding SES TechCom at http://www.ses.com/techcom

HITEC Luxembourg has their infosite residing at http://www.hitec.lu/

To learn more about emergency.lu, please visit http://emergency.lu/

The Luxembourg Air Rescue infosite may be reached at http://www.lar.lu/index.php/en/

The Luxembourg Air Ambulance infosite is located at http://www.air-ambulance.lu/