Navigation Support Office: into its second decade

The Navigation Support Office has been operating since 2006, spun off from ESOC’s Flight Dynamics division. The foundation of its POD services are the GNSS constellations around Earth, not only Galileo but GPS, Glonass, Beidou and the Indian and Japanese satellites. To derive the positions of European missions, the positions and the clock rates of the satnav satellites used to measure them must first be determined to a high degree of accuracy, down to a few centimetres on an ongoing basis, with observations, obtained every second via a dedicated worldwide real time network of sensor stations – the Office oversees the ESA GNSS Observation Network.

Among its other activities, the Office represents ESA in international GNSS, scientific and geodetic-related forums, and maintains the ‘Galileo geodetic reference frame’ – the reference system for the three-dimensional Earth, essential for accurate positioning, navigation, and timing, as well as contributing to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame – the globally agreed equivalent system.