Context
An IndiGo aircraft landed at Kishangarh, using an approach process guided by India’s own satellite-based augmentation system named GAGAN, or GPS-aided GEO Augmented Navigation.
What is GAGAN?
- GAGAN is an acronym for GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation.
- It is a Space Based Augmentation System (SBAS) jointly developed by ISRO and AAI (Airport Authority of India) to provide the best possible navigational services over Indian FIR (Flight Information Region) with the capability of expanding to neighboring FIRs.
About GAGAN Technology
- Using a technology known as the Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), GAGAN corrects the errors in GPS signals and feeds the corrected signals to the moving vehicle (GPS user), thus enabling precise navigation.
- Thus, GAGAN is a system of satellites and ground stations that provide GPS signal corrections, giving better position accuracy.
- GPS alone does not meet the ICAOs navigational requirements for accuracy, integrity and availability.
- GAGAN corrects for GPS signal errors caused by Ionospheric disturbances, timing and satellite orbit errors and also it provides vital information regarding the health of each satellite.
- The objective of GAGAN to establish, deploy and certify satellite based augmentation systems for safety-of-life civil aviation applications in India has been successfully completed.
- While the USA, Japan, Russia, China, etc., have had their own systems to perform this corrective action, India just tested its home-grown SBAS to aid the precise operation and landing of a passenger aircraft that uses GPS.
- The system is interoperable with other international SBAS systems like US-WAAS, European EGNOS, and Japanese MSAS etc.
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