EGNOS V3 site preparation and hosting contracts signed
A total of 25 countries, including EU Member States, other participating European countries and selected cooperating countries beyond the EU, have now signed contracts with EUSPA – the operational agency of the EU Space Programme that manages EGNOS service provision – to host key EGNOS infrastructure on their territory.
Their participation will enable the construction of vital facilities, including ranging and integrity monitoring stations (RIMS), mission control centres (MCCs), navigation land Earth stations (NLES) and operations coordination centres (OCC).
Twenty-five countries working together for EGNOS V3
Over and above the individual operational value of these contracts, they symbolise these countries’ dedication to making navigation services – relied on by millions of people – safer, more accurate, more reliable and more resilient. As Jean-Marc Piéplu, Head of the Operations Department at EUSPA, says: "We could not have achieved this milestone without the collaboration of these 25 countries, who have all demonstrated their continued commitment to EGNOS and their recognition of its value. Their cooperation is essential to the renewal of this shared European infrastructure, and it is thanks to their support that we are now another important step closer to EGNOS enhanced services."
The future of EGNOS
EGNOS evolutions will pave the way for extended EGNOS coverage while preparing future service enhancements. Thanks to the system’s flexible design, coverage can be expanded by adding monitoring stations within the broadcast area of its geostationary satellites, without interrupting the EGNOS signal.
Building on this progress, the completion of the contracting phase for the EGNOS V3 infrastructure marks an important milestone in the programme's evolution. At the same time, EGNOS is moving towards the delivery of the long-awaited Dual Frequency Multi-Constellation (DFMC) services, which will further enhance its capabilities and performance.
DFMC services will allow EGNOS to augment Global Positioning System (GPS) and Galileo signals on two frequency bands: L1 and L5. This combination means that EGNOS will be able to provide users, especially those in safety-critical roles such as pilots, with more accurate positioning, better availability and greater resilience of the EGNOS services.
About EGNOS
EGNOS is Europe’s regional SBAS. Today, EGNOS uses a set of geostationary satellites and a network of ground stations to increase the accuracy of GPS signals. This system is constantly evolving to continuously bring enhanced capabilities and services to the users.
EGNOS uses Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements taken by reference stations deployed mainly across Europe and North Africa. These measurements are transferred to a central computing centre where differential corrections and integrity messages are calculated. These calculations are then broadcast over the covered area using geostationary satellites that serve as an augmentation, or overlay, to the original GNSS message.
Alongside improving the accuracy and reliability of GNSS positioning, the system provides a crucial integrity message and transmits an accurate time signal.
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