FAA bites $600 million bullet, orders more WAAS satellites | Aviation International News

Regulations and Government

FAA bites $600 million bullet, orders more WAAS satellites

While the FAA’s current WAAS network offers equipped users with improved GPS performance across the continental U.S.

By John Sheridan

February 2, 2007

While the FAA’s current WAAS network offers equipped users with improved GPS performance across the continental U.S. and Alaska, it still does not provide the redundancy and reliability required from an aviation navigation service. So the FAA has now contracted to obtain additional geostationary satellites (GEOs) to rectify this shortcoming.

WAAS signals are currently beamed down from FAA transponders aboard two very-high-altitude commercial GEOs located over the western Atlantic and central Pacific. Should the WAAS downlink transponder fail in either of them, particularly the unit aboard the western Atlantic GEO, then a significant part of North America would lose GPS accuracy enhancement and satellite failure alerts, along with potential degradation in the user’s position calculations.

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