The EGNOS ground segment in Torrejon de Ardoz, Spain and Ciampino, Italy is currently undergoing an important upgrade to ensure further robustness and integrity of services to the users of Europe’s Satellite-Based-Augmentation System (SBAS).
EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, has been augmenting GPS signal and providing services to users in Europe since June 2005. The provision of EGNOS services is generating tangible benefits to numerous market segments, including road, rail, maritime, geomatics, agriculture and in particular aviation. About to celebrate its 10th Safety of Life (SoL) anniversary, the system is currently replacing its five Central Processing Facilities (CPF) of first generation with new, second generation ones.
The role of CPFs is to process the data received from the network of more than 40 reference stations (RIMS) to elaborate clock and ephemeris corrections for each GPS satellite in view. CPFs generate a model for ionospheric induced delays over the EGNOS service area to compensate for ionospheric perturbations to the navigation signals ensuring the integrity of the broadcast corrections. The second generation CPFs, developed by Thales Alenia Space, come together with the entry into service of a new EGNOS System Release "ESR-242A".
A step-wise approach
The changes in the EGNOS ground segment were performed in a seamless manner without any interruption from an EGNOS user point of view, and without compromising at any moment the EGNOS performance. The deployment plan ensures the service continuity on the two geostationary satellites, with just few minutes outage in each. A two-month testing period will follow before decommissioning the old CPF, allowing for a rollback in case of need.
"The CPF upgrade is an important building block which will further ensure the uninterrupted and robust provision of service to our diverse group of users that grows daily," says Jean-Marc Piéplu, Head of EGNOS Services Department. "Congratulations to all teams involved, industry, the service provider, ESA and EUSPA teams," Piéplu concludes.