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Datum Awarded Atomic Clock Contract for EGNOS
BEVERLY, Mass, Datum Corporation's Timing, Test and Measurement facility based in Beverly, Mass., has been awarded a contract to supply both Cesium and Rubidium atomic clocks in support of Europe's Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) which is designed to provide precise navigational information for many forms of transportation from aircraft and oceanic to commercial trucks.
"We are very proud to have been selected to work on this important project with such a select group of multi-national companies," said Erik van der Kaay, Datum's chairman and chief executive officer. "This contract award is another indication of the increasing international applications for our family of advanced timing products."
These systems are designed to enable commercial aircraft to utilize GPS positioning signals as a sole means of navigation. This will alleviate much of the current airspace congestion caused by queing aircraft flying the same corridors to reach a specific airport. In addition to improving safety, the new GPS navigation system will reduce travel time and save fuel by allowing direct point-to-point routing of aircraft. The system is similar to the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) being deployed in the United States and Japan's Multi-satellite-based Augmentation System (MSAS), which Datum also has supplied.
The atomic clocks will serve as the source for the critical EGNOS System Time, used to validate the satellite navigation signals for integrity and accuracy. The system replaces outdated beacon technology and is capable of providing positioning information with accuracy within seven meters of the system's actual location. Datum's cesium-based atomic clocks are accurate to within a fraction of a second over 300,000 years.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), EGNOS will transform air traffic management, enhance communications and surveillance capabilities, thus increasing safety, gaining time and reducing fuel consumption and costs.
Details of the contract have not been revealed, but Datum sees this award as the first step in participating in ESA's far-reaching Galileo Program.
About Datum Inc.
Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., Datum designs, manufactures and markets advanced, cost-effective network synchronization, timing and frequency solutions for telecommunications, computer networks, satellite systems and test and measurement applications. With more than 150,000 solutions in operation worldwide, Datum is the world's leading supplier of embedded and external carrier-class synchronization solutions.
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