US, Europe to work on enhanced satellite navigation for aircraft

Aviation authorities are moving to improve the accuracy and reliability of satellite navigation by enabling aircraft in the future to simultaneously rely on separate orbiting systems run by the US and Europe. Such proposed changes, recently endorsed by the US FAA’s top outside technical advisers, set the stage for major shifts in how pilots will use space systems for precise position data and flight routes. The upshot would be safer skies because of more exact information about locations of planes and reduced likelihood of gaps or hacking of signals by making more satellites available to users. For the first time, formal plans envision airliners, business jets and even some private planes processing signals at the same time from both GPS satellites operated by the US Air Force and Europe’s still-unfinished Galileo constellation. <br/>