EGNOS or the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service is Europe’s first venture into satellite navigation and paves the way for Galileo, Europe’s independent global satellite navigation system. As a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS), EGNOS improves the accuracy of basic satellite navigation signals in Europe such as those from the USA’s Global Positioning System (GPS). This makes GPS suitable for safety critical applications such as aviation or maritime navigation.

The EGNOS system is composed of transponders installed on three geostationary satellites and an interconnected ground network of about 40 positioning stations and four mission control centres. At the moment, EGNOS offers good performance in all EU countries with the exception of certain places located in the northern, southern, and eastern extremes of EU territory. This will be improved in the future. EGNOS also has the technical capability to be extended to North Africa and the Middle East, pending the construction of additional ground infrastructure.

Source: gsa.europa.eu