Brussels, 01/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The day after signing a contract with the ESSP SaS company (European Satellite Services Provider) responsible for the exploitation and maintenance of the system until 2013, the European Commission officially announced, on Thursday 1 October, the launch of EGNOS - Europe's first contribution to satellite navigation and a precursor of Galileo (the EU's satellite navigation system). Already available in space, the EGNOS signal has thus become accessible to users, allowing the accuracy of GPS signals to be improved from 10 metres to two metres.
At this stage, among the three services provided by the system, namely the Open Service, the Safety-of-Life Service and the commercial system, only the first is available. The commercial service or EDAS (EGNOS Data Access Service), which would allow users to gain access in real time to information received by the system infrastructure, is currently being tried out and will be available in 2010. The Safety-of-Life Service, which will be free of charge, should be in place by mid-2010 after finalisation of the EGNOS certification process for use by civil aviation and for other vital security activities. Once activated, the Safety-of-Life Service will signal any malfunction of a satellite, emitting a warning message to users within six seconds of fault detection. The Open Service, activated on Thursday, is available to any user equipped with a GPS/SBAS receptor compatible in the zone covered by the three satellites of the system (most of the EU member states except Poland and some parts of southern Europe with the possibility of extending coverage to the countries of North Africa and neighbouring countries). Being the first EU system of this kind, EGNOS will be available for enterprise and private persons with the possibility of application in multiple sectors such as agriculture, transport, navigation or even guidance for the blind. Operations of EGNOS are managed by ESSP SaS, a company based in Toulouse, France, founded by seven air navigation services providers (AENA, Spain; DFS, Germany; DSNA France; ENAV Italy; NATS Britain; NAV Portugal; and Skyguide, Switzerland). (A.By./transl.jl)