While EGNOS, SBAS, GBAS and Galileo may be unfamiliar to most North American aviators, they are key elements in Europe’s determined move to a satellite air traffic control environment. Addressing the FAA’s satellite operations implementation team meeting in December, Eurocontrol officials reported on progress toward their vision of
a satnav future. But it’s more than just a vision–these are real programs currently under way, with at least one moving ahead of the U.S.
EGNOS (European geostationary navigation overlay system) is equivalent to the FAA’s WAAS, which will transmit GPS integrity alerts and accuracy corrections. EGNOS will overlap WAAS in the mid-Atlantic and extend east to central Asia, where it will overlap with Japan’s WAAS-like multi-transport satellite augmentation system (MSAS), which will overlap with WAAS in the mid-Pacific to complete worldwide coverage. EGNOS tests are yielding position accuracies of two meters, and the system is forecast to be operational in 2005, when it will also provide integrity alerts and accuracy corrections for Russia’s Glonass and Europe’s future Galileo satnav systems.
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