The precise landing of a helicopter providing health services, or the entry of a boat into a port guided by a satellite, or farmers operating their vehicles safely with the guidance of an exact signal… EGNOS improves the performance of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as GPS and Galileo, providing safety-of-life services via signal transmission from a duo of satellite transponders in geostationary orbit and allowing even more precision than with GNSS alone.

David Allain, our engineer based in Toulouse, France (who has provided Engineering Services to the European Space Agency for more than ten years) gives us his insight into his unique experience with the EGNOS project:

“I have been part of the EGNOS development team in Toulouse since 2015. I manage IVQ activities for ESA on the current version in operation, the EGNOS V2, developed by Thales Alenia Space. EUSPA, the EU Agency for the Space Programme, will take over the activity this year. A new challenge arises with the development of the system’s third generation, integrating the GALILEO constellation in a new design with a new manufacturer: Airbus Defense & Space. Our challenge is to have an EGNOS V3 in service around 2025, by which time a lot of development and long IVQ activities are scheduled”.
EGNOS, the acronym for “European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service”, has been active for ten years now.