COMPANY PROFILE

Contents
EGNOS Foundations
Company Structure and Ownership
ESSP Consortium

EGNOS Foundations

EGNOS is the first major contribution of Europe to satellite navigation, a domain in which both the USA (the GPS constellation) and Russia (the GLONASS constellation) already have a strong presence. EGNOS is a satellite navigation project of the European Tripartite Group (ETG), whose members are the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission (EC) and EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation:

The European Space Agency has overall responsibility for the design and development of the EGNOS system.	The European Commission is responsible for international cooperation and coordination	EUROCONTROL is defining the needs of civil aviation and supporting the testing and operational validation of the system.

The EGNOS design, development and validation costs amount to just over 300 M€. Through the ARTES-IX programme, a number of national entities invested in this phase with the European Tripartite Group (ETG). These entities, assembled as a memorandum of cooperation called the EGNOS Operators and Infrastructure Group (EOIG), mainly constituted of Air Navigation Service Providers, invested approximately 100 M€ - one third of the programme

Company Structure and Ownership

The ESSP (European Satellite Services Provider) was founded on April 4th 2001. Its shareholders (or Members) are 7 key European Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), which are also members of the EOIG and signatories to the ESA ARTES-IX programme.

The ESSP members are:

-AENA
-DFS
-DGAC/DSNA
-ENAV
-NATS
-NAV
-skyguide

The very nature of EGNOS – a safety critical satellite navigation system composed of geographically disseminated elements – dictated the creation of a centralised coordination company. The ESSP was set-up as a European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) and is based in Brussels, Belgium.

The ESSP with its consortium members and industrial partners ensure that the day to day operations are performed safely and consistently by all organisations involved. The setup of the operational framework is a demanding task, as the system infrastructure is distributed across various organisations located in geographically dispersed areas.

	ESSP Member Organisations							Other Organisations
	AENA	DFS	DSNA	ENAV	NATS	NAV PT	skyguide	CNES	NMA	Industry&Others
Mission Control Centre (MCC)
Navigation Land Earth Station (NLES)
Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Station (RIMS)
Performance Assessment Checkout Facility (PACF)
Application Specific Qualification Facility (ASQF)
EGNOS Wide Area Network
Geostationary Satellites

The above table gives an overview of the various EGNOS infrastructure elements and the related entity in charge of day-to-day operations. Other industrial entities will be involved in EGNOS operations, notably for the EGNOS Wide Area Network and the management of the geostationary satellites. “Operating” the system means endorsing many different tasks and roles: hosting EGNOS facilities, controlling EGNOS assets, maintaining hardware and software components, offering engineering support and providing a service to the overall operations coordinator. The ESSP will coordinate operations and provide certification and validation of EGNOS Operations. The ESSP has initiated relationships with all entities involved in operations, so as to define common operational procedures, and ensure the safety of the system.

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