GALILEO

|GALILEO as a major technological, economic and political challenge

|A system that both competes with and complements the American GPS system

|The future of GNSS: GALILEO + GPS

|Unquestionable economic viability

|European GNSS: A two-step approach

A two-step approach

Recognising the strategic importance of satellite navigation and its potential applications, Europe decided to develop its own GNSS capability in a two-step approach:

GNSS-1 : EGNOS

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe's first foray into satellite navigation. It is being developed by ESA under a tripartite agreement between the European Commission (EC), the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) and European Space Agency (ESA). Several air traffic service providers are supporting the development programme with their own investments.

EGNOS will complement the GPS and GLONASS systems. It will disseminate, on the GPS L1 frequency, integrity signals giving real-time information on the health of the constellation. Correction data will improve the accuracy of the current services from about 20 m to better than 5 m. The EGNOS coverage area includes all European states and could be readily extended to include other regions, such as South America, Africa, and parts of Asia and Australia, within the coverage of three geostationary satellites being used.

EGNOS offers all users of satellite radio navigation a high-performance navigation and positioning service, superior to that currently available in Europe. The system is composed of three transponders installed in geostationary satellites and a ground network of 34 positioning stations and four control centres, all interconnected. EGNOS  will be used foremost for safety-critical transport applications, e.g. in the aviation and maritime sectors.

See also: 
Commission Communication on the integration of the EGNOS programme in the GALIIEO programme (154 kB, 19.03.2003)
Council Conclusions on the integration of EGNOS in GALILEO (84 kB, 05.06.2003)

More information on EGNOS is available at the ESA website on navigation.

GNSS-2: GALILEO

GALILEO is Europe’s initiative for a state-of-the-art global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. While providing autonomous navigation and positioning services, GALILEO will at the same time be interoperable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems. A user will be able to take a position with the same receiver from any of the satellites in any combination. By offering dual frequencies as standard, however, GALILEO will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to the metre range, which is unprecedented for a publicly available system. It will guarantee availability of the service under all but the most extreme circumstances and will inform users within seconds of a failure of any satellite. This will make it suitable for applications where safety is crucial, such as running trains, guiding cars and landing aircraft.  The combined use of GALILEO and other GNSS systems will offer much improved performances for all kinds of user communities all over the world.

The fully deployed GALILEO system will consist of 30 satellites and the associated ground infrastructure.