A new satnav layer to complement the European Galileo constellation for added resilience and novel services

• A Low Earth Orbit constellation dedicated to Positioning Navigation and Timing
• A game changer for increased precision, resilience and signal penetration enabling new applications and economic growth

Toulouse, March 19, 2024 –Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), signed a contract with European Space Agency to deliver an end to end solution for the LEO-PNT (Low Earth Orbit  Positioning Navigation and Timing) orbit demonstrator. This contract includes the space (5 satellites to be launched), ground and users segments, the in orbit operations (including deorbiting), the launch, the test user segment, experimentation and service demonstration in different industries representative user environments.

This constellation will work in combination with Galileo and other satellite navigation systems to provide guaranteed centimeter location accuracy, robustness, resistance against jamming and spoofing as well as low latency (very fast acquisition). LEO-PNT will thus allow to serve emerging applications as high level autonomy cars including persistent coverage in dense urban areas, unmanned aerial & maritime vehicles or 5G/6G ground telecommunication network synchronization.