The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT) announced on Dec. 26 that it will launch the KASS, which provides precise positioning signals by correcting positioning errors on Dec. 28. The service can decrease the scope of errors (15 to 33 meters) that occur when using GPS signals to 1 to 1.6 meters. The service will be the fifth after those of the United States (WAAS), Europe (EGNOS), India (GAGAN), and Japan (MSAS).
The KASS Project has been underway for nine years with a large budget of approximately 128 billion won since 2014. Last year, the first satellite was successfully launched. Since then, the final performance verification has been successfully completed through ground-satellite integration tests, and the KASS will be used on the skyway beginning from Dec. 28.
A certificate award ceremony will also be held on the same day after completing a performance conformity certification conducted in cooperation with the Aviation Safety Technology Institute and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to certify whether or not the KASS system meets the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’s performance standards.
“The KASS is of great significance in terms of securing domestic advanced navigation assets using satellites,” said Yoo Kyung-soo, an aviation safety official at MOLIT. “In addition to aviation services, it will be applied to various location information service industries such as smartphones, urban air mobility (UAM), and autonomous driving to make people’s lives more convenient. We hope that it will serve as an opportunity for Korea to grow into a satellite-based location information industry powerhouse in the world in the future.”