“It is ESA’s ambition to ensure Europe maintains a world-class space industry, and navigation today forms the single largest downstream space sector, worth about €150 billion annually and growing at the rate of 10% per year,” comments ESA Director of Navigation Javier Benedicto-Ruiz. “Standing still is not an option; instead we need to explore new technical avenues to spur European competitiveness and commercialisation.”

An operational version of the LEO-PNT constellation would represent a whole new layer for PNT delivery, combined with traditional GNSS as well as 5G/6G-based positioning on the ground, and fused with data from sensors in the user terminals.

Interest from industry

ESA has been researching core elements of the LEO-PNT concept since 2016. Now, numerous low Earth orbit constellations already taking shape around the globe, the time is right to move from basic research to in-orbit demonstration.

Interest from European industry in the LEO-PNT project has been very high, shown by a recent Request for Information where ESA presented details of how companies and institutions might participate and a large number of companies registered and presented possible concepts and contributions.

Forward to FutureNAV

LEO-PNT is supported through the ESA Directorate of Navigation’s FutureNAV programme, which also includes the GENESIS satellite to measure the shape of Earth more accurately than ever before while also boosting the positioning performance of satnav satellites. The FutureNAV programme, which includes both GENESIS and the ‘LEO-PNT’ initiative, is up for decision at ESA’s next Ministerial Conference in November.