SBAS for Australia & NZ

[kiwi grey]

According to https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113447617/fog-delays-at-nz-airports-could-be-blown-away-by-transtasman-technology-project (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113447617/fog-delays-at-nz-airports-could-be-blown-away-by-transtasman-technology-project) (15 June), "The [NZ] Government intends to piggy-back on an initiative by Australia, which last year earmarked A$225 million (NZ$238m) to buy and operate a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS) that will improve the accuracy of GPS location data from about 4 metres to just 10cm."
This was followed up on TV News on 23 June https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/save-lives-government-announce-2-million-investment-into-gps-technology

Is this just WAAS (the US Wide Area Augmentation System), or are the Aussies going to invent something uniquely Australian?
If it is WAAS, why do we have to work with the Aussies, and why is it going to take four years?

The Japanese already have two WAAS-compatible satellites in geostationary orbit (they call the system MSAS / Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System), and presumably NZ could latch onto that by installing some ground stations and paying the Japanese civil aviation authorities a licensing fee to access their satellites.
All modern (or even modern-ish) aircraft should already be fitted with a WAAS-compatible satnav system, as it is widespread in high-volume parts of the world - as well as the original US WAAS and the Japanese MSAS, there's EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service).

[BuzzBox]

SBAS is simply the generic name for systems such as WAAS (USA), EGNOS (Europe), MSAS (Japan) and GAGAN (India). My understanding is that Australia & NZ are testing a second-generation SBAS system that uses dual-frequency multi-constellation signals to provide significantly better performance than the existing systems.

[Beer Baron]

presumably NZ could latch onto that by installing some ground stations and paying the Japanese civil aviation authorities a licensing fee to access their satellites.
I’m no rocket/satellite scientist but I’d have imagined a geostationary satellite over Japan would be too far away for use in NZ. Given much of the error that SBAS is correcting is caused by the ionosphere, propagating a correction all the way to NZ would be subject to the same interference wouldn’t it?

[Chris2303]

Perhaps Rocket Labs could do a cheap shot to put a geostationary satellite over Gisborne?

[Bleve]

I’m no rocket/satellite scientist ....
Apparently not. 😄 Geostationary satellites are always located directly above the equator. The distance from there to Japan will be about the same as to NZ and Oz. For example here’s a view from Japan’s geostationary weather satellite.

https://www.jma.go.jp/en/gms/