EGNOS to be declared ‘operationally ready’ in October27 August 2009The European Commission expects to declare in October 2009 that EGNOS’ freely available satellite navigation signal is operationally ready as an open and free service. EGNOS’ Open Service provides Europeans with unprecedented positioning precision by improving the accuracy of GPS. For the past several months, EGNOS has demonstrated excellent signal quality throughout Europe, the Commission says. The continuing monitoring of the augmentation signal shows it improves the accuracy of GPS to within one to two meters and is available more than 99 percent of the time. By comparison, someone using a GPS receiver that is not EGNOS enabled can only be sure of their position to within 17 metres. In announcing the availability of the Open Service, the Commission will say this level of performance is available for the long term and that the signal can be used without any charges. Receiver manufacturers and application developers will be able to provide their customers with the benefits of the GPS performance improvements simply by adding EGNOS capability to their products. No authorisation or receiver- specific certification will be required. A milestone for EGNOS The certification of ESSP is being organised by the French National Supervisory Authority, which is mandated to do so on behalf of the European Community. The European Commission assigned the operational management and maintenance of EGNOS to ESSP, a company based in Toulouse, France and founded by seven air navigation service providers in Europe. Certification is necessary to use the EGNOS Safety-Of-Life Service in industry segments where lives are at stake. Once certified EGNOS will be available for use in civil aviation as a navigation aid. In particular it can be used for non-precision approaches (NPA) and for approaches with vertical guidance (APV). A third service, the EGNOS Data Access Server (EDAS), is currently undergoing testing. EDAS is a terrestrial commercial data service that disseminates EGNOS data collected from its three satellites and network of ground stations in real time. Companies have been beta testing the service since 2008. Future development The EGNOS Open Service declaration will be the result of a joint effort between the European public sector (the European Space Agency and the European Commission) and private sector providers Thales Alenia Space and ESSP. EGNOS is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission (EC) and Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. It is the precursor to Galileo, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) currently being developed by the European Union. Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you do republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA Web site (http://www.gsa.europa.eu). More information: |