The European Commision recently and proudly announced that EGNOS was now providing an "open" service across Europe.I interpret the meaning of "open" as "use at your own peril". It promised a "safety of life" capability sometime in 2010.
EGNOS is a space-based augmentation system of GPS similar to WAAS in the US. WAAS is capable of providing a Cat I capability (DH=200ft)at some US runways,negating the requirement for ILS although the appropriate visual aids will still be required of course.The FAA has been providing this service for several years, steadily increasing the number of certified approaches.
Europe have been at the EGNOS task for what seems a long time.Why has it taken such a long time to perform what is surely a fairly straightforward copying task?(EC, ESA, and Eurocontrol are all .
involved--too many fingers in the pie?)
Galileo doesn't seem to be doing much better. The launch of two batches of production satellites (comprising three satellites each) have been delayed again, and contracts for the remaining 18 (making a final constellation of 24) have net even been awarded yet.
Keith
