Introducing EGNOS

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe's first venture into satellite navigation. It was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) under a tripartite agreement between the European Commission (EC), the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) and ESA. Several air traffic service providers are supporting the development programme with their own investments. In April 2009, the ownership of the EGNOS assets have been transferred from the European Space Agency to the European Commission which now manages and finances the entry of EGNOS into the Service Provision phase

EGNOS is the European Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) that complements the GPS system. It disseminates, on the GPS L1 frequency, integrity signals in real-time, providing information on the health of the GPS constellation. In addition, correction data improves the accuracy of the current GPS services from about 10 m to about 2 m. The EGNOS Service Area includes all European states and has the system-inherent capability to be extended to other regions, such as EU neighbouring countries, North Africa and more generally regions within the coverage of three geostationary satellites being used to transmit the EGNOS signal