The European GNSS Agency (GSA) announces that the EGNOS time service remained stable and properly synchronised to UTC time during a recent GPS timing anomaly on January 26th.

On the 26th of January, users of United States GPS system experienced timing issues after a number of GPS satellites broadcast incorrect UTC correction parameters. According to the US Air Force, the coordinated universal time message that was transmitted was off by 13 microseconds. During this anomaly EGNOS, which serves as an augmentation to the GPS, remained stable and properly synchronised to UTC.

European EGNOS has been providing its own time service since March 2011. The system generates its own time scale known as ENT (EGNOS Network Time), which obtains its information from atomic clocks across RIMS sites. EGNOS time is compared with UTC through the UTC time realisation of l’Observatoire de Paris, and the difference is transmitted in the EGNOS navigation message (MT12). EGNOS time information can be received via broadcast GEO satellite signals or via the EDAS service, which allows users to access EGNOS data online in real time.

EGNOS offers such a protection of their GNSS timing service to all SBAS users, across all application domains, including aviation, rail, maritime, surveying, agriculture, location based services and more.