Egnos in operation
The ESSP has been contracted by the European Commission to ensure the operation, maintenance and more generally the EGNOS Service Provision for the period 2009-2013
Initial Operations Phase
ESSP began the Initial Operations in July 2005, under contract with the European Space Agency (ESA). This period was used to ramp-up the operations activities, stabilise the system and processes and finally prepare the qualification of the system.
This phase was concluded in April 2009
EGNOS Signal Provision Phase
Since April 2009, The European Commission has assigned the service provision of EGNOS Signal to the ESSP. The ESSP is committed to the following main objectives in the course of the ESP Contract:
- EGNOS Service Provision, Operations and maintenance (including network connectivity and geostationary transponder leases)
- To finalise the ESSP Certification process as Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) under the Single European Sky (SES) Service Regulation
- The EGNOS signal and data provision for Open Service (OS) and Safety of Life Service (SoL)
- The support to the European Commission for the implementation of the promotion of enabling actions for the EGNOS signal and services mainly in the civil aviation market
ESSP Certification
The Single European Sky Certification of ESSP is being organised by the French National Supervisory Authority, which is mandated to do so on behalf of the European Commission. This certification is planned to be achieved by mid 2010.
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)
EGNOS Services
EGNOS offers all users of satellite radio navigation high-performance navigation and positioning services, superior to that currently available in Europe. The three services available are:
- Open Service
- Safety-of-Life Service
- EGNOS Data Access Server (EDAS)
For the EGNOS Open Service, the signal-in-space is already continuously available since October 2009. EGNOS Open Service provides unprecedented positioning precision by improving the accuracy of GPS. For the past several months, EGNOS has demonstrated excellent signal quality throughout Europe.
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.
A second key milestone will be achieved in 2010, when the ESSP will be certified in compliance with the Single European Sky regulations. EGNOS will be declared for the Safety-Of-Life Service
EGNOS is also providing a terrestrial commercial data service: EDAS (EGNOS Data Access Service). EDAS disseminates EGNOS data in real-time and is the single point of access for the data collected and generated by the EGNOS infrastructure. EDAS allows users to "plug in" to EGNOS by providing access to satellite navigation data generated by ground stations distributed over Europe and North Africa.
EDAS is now offering a free 12-month beta trial from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010. The trial is open, on application, to companies who plan to exploit it to develop precision location-based services for the market.