An important milestone came recently for Europe’s GNSS and also for the worldwide GNSS community. In November Galileo started the testing phase of the Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) in the signal-in-space. The European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) is currently responsible for generating the OSNMA message and delivering it to the Galileo’s Ground Mission Segment. The OSNMA is, together with the High Accuracy Service, one of the main added values provided by the Galileo constellation.

The GSC forms part of the infrastructure of Europe’s Galileo navigation program. Its main role is to act as the single interface with EGNSS users and contribute to OSNMA and High Accuracy service delivery. The centre is also conceived as a centre of expertise to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, to support developers, to bring GNSS to wider notice and to provide support for the provision of value-added services.

The GSC, located in Madrid, is run by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) with the support of Spain, which provides the Galileo program with the necessary infrastructure and facilities for hosting the centre. In 2014 a GMV-led consortium together with Indra won the framework contract for supply of GSC infrastructure, holding onto this responsibility ever since. Since that year, GMV also led the AALECS (Authentic and Accurate Location Experimentation with the Commercial Service) project, for the European Commission that implemented the first OSNMA prototypes.

The new version of the GSC, supporting the OSNMA testing phase, is now operational. OSNMA ensures that the received navigation data is coming from a Galileo satellite and is not being faked. This verification layer provides a strong feature of protection for the Galileo constellation. This is a great achievement for Europe’s GNSS; it is the first signal from a constellation of navigation satellites that demonstrates this service worldwide, making Galileo the most robust and secure GNSS system. This new GSC version allows the Galileo Programme to prepare the future OSNMA Public Observation phase.

The GSC Infrastructure consortium has played a major role in this great success, highlighting GMV’s work and reaffirming its position as a dependable partner. During the implementation phase, the consortium has been working closely with the GSA and other stakeholders, such as the European Commission, to develop the GSC, upgrade Galileo’s services and win Europe’s GNSS worldwide leadership in the field of secure and robust navigation.