The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Two satellite-based navigation systems for the high precision positioning of aircraft, ships, trucks are operational today: the US's Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (Glonass). Both are military oriented networks, each based on similar constellation of nominally 24 operational satellites.
Europe decided to implement a satellite-based navigation system in a two-step approach. The first step led to a European overlay navigation system (EGNOS) based on existing navigation satellites constellations. The second step (Galileo) is enabling Europe to set up its own civilian satellite navigation service.