Eutelsat says it has won a significant order from Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite Agency (GSA) to add an EGNOS navigation system as a payload on its upcoming Eutelsat 5 West B satellite.

EGNOS is the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service that acts as an augmentation service to conventional Global Positioning Systems to improve the accuracy and reliability of positioning information. The largest users of EGNOS are Europe’s airports and their landing aircraft.

EGNOS also provides a crucial integrity message regarding the continuity and availability of a signal which is essential in aviation and used in critical flight stages such as final approaches. With the addition of EGNOS, which has been certified for civil aviation since 2011, systems such as GPS and Galileo can satisfy ICAO standards.

This additional payload will be installed on the Eutelsat satellite and is scheduled for launch towards the end of 2018. The new payload marks a replenishment of current EGNOS capacity and is scheduled to start service in 2019 for a duration of 15 years.

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