Your Space

Dictionary about Communication, Earth Observation and Navigation issues

GMES

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA). The idea of developing a European owned GMES service came across to achieve an autonomous and more accurate Earth observation capacity able to face climate change and security issues. The GMES technology finds its application in the following fields:

-            Land monitoring

-            Marine Environment Monitoring

-            Atmosphere Monitoring

-            Emergency Management

Several are the potential users of the GMES service; nevertheless in this first implementation stage, its success will be strictly related to policy-makers entitled of harmonizing the regional, national and European environment legislation and lay the foundation for an effective GMES application.

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Galileo

Galileois a satellite navigation system representing the technology which will provide effectiveness to the GMES service. It was set up in March 2002 by EU and ESA to create the “European” satellite system independent from the American GPS; able to provide its users with more precise and accurate data. However due to the high implementation costs the satellite will be fully operational only by 2020.

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GNSS

theGlobal Navigation satellite System is the system of satellites which provides geospatial positioning with a global coverage. The satellite system thanks to a timely radio data transmission to small electronic receivers is able to detect the precise location of the user. As of 2010, the only global fully operation GNS System is the America NAVSTAR (GPS); nevertheless the Russian GLONASS is developing into a more global coverage.   

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EGNOS

EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, is Europe's first venture into the field of satellite navigation and paves the way for Galileo, Europe's independent global satellite navigation system currently under development. EGNOS is operational and available for use with both an Open Service and a Safety-of-Life Service for aviation.
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GPS

Global Position Systemis the US owned utility able to provide its users with a real time positioning and navigation service.  The utility is developed and managed by the U.S. Air Force and provides a service for civilian and military users. While the civilian service is available worldwide without any costs, the military service is available to the U.S army and to other approved Government Agencies and provides a more accurate positioning service.

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ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €3.99 billion / $5.65 billion US dollars (2011).

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FP7

The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 through FP8, are funding programmes created by the European Union in order to support and encourage research in the European Research Area (ERA). The actual Framework Programme is FP7 which runs for seven years (2007-2013) and has a budget of over € 50 billion.
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