Satellite navigation

Illustration: ESA

With a considerable extent of its land and territorial waters, low population density and sub-Arctic to Arctic weather, Norway benefits greatly from the (mainly) American satellite navigation system, GPS.

GPS is free to users and throughout the world provides a positioning accuracy of 5 - 10 metres using decreasingly expensive receivers. In Norway, GPS serves many users, including coastal express ships, aircraft landing at small airfields, snow clearing on mountain passes and various emergency services.

Through its membership in ESA, Norway now is taking part in the development of Galileo, the next generation satellite navigation system.