The European network that augments GPS signals to make them more exact is right away fitting for use in aviation, the European Commission says.
Egnos , the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, can discuss it planes and helicopters where they are inside of a couple of metres or less.
The network was approved for "safety of life" applications on Wednesday.
This means its opening is of a high sufficient typical that pilots can reliably use it as a navigation tool.
Big airliners alighting at leading general airports typically rest on belligerent technologies to guide them to a runway, but Egnos is expected to help with a few last draw close phases and in enhancing aircrafts' positioning en route.
The network should be more critical at a few tiny airports where the belligerent infrastructure is ample more limited.
Antonio Tajani, Vice-President of the European Commission, done the Egnos statement in London.
He told BBC News that Egnos and the shortly to launch Galileo network - a European chronicle of GPS - were key initiatives is to EU and its interests in space.
"I think in Egnos and Galileo, not since they are my dream, but since they are segment of our industrial policy," he said.
"Space might be up there," he added, indicating to the sky, "but Egnos and Galileo will broach services to the inhabitant here on the ground."
Egnos is a joint plan of the European Commission, the European Space Agency (Esa), and Eurocontrol, the European organization is to safety of air navigation.
It proposed primary operations in 2005 and has steadily ramped up its service.
The network comprises 3 geostationary satellites and a network of belligerent stations.
It receives GPS signals, analyses and corrects errors, and then transmits that
Egnos moreover transmits honesty messages, or warnings, if there is a leading complaint in the sat-nav process.
Users with the right apparatus can obtain fixes plumb and horizontally that are, in many instances, exact to decimetres - of course improved than two metres.
The uncorrected GPS signal, on the other hand, might be many metres out.
The assurance, together with those tested accuracies, creates Egnos right away fitting for applications where lives might depend on its performance.
Aviation is one such application, but any guided means of ride stands to benefit.
Search and rescue helicopters are expected to use Egnos for really correct positioning in bad weather.
Professor Terry Moore, an consultant on heavenly body navigation from the University of Nottingham, commented: "An critical aspect of this is moreover about using the airspace more efficiently.
"For example, this means more efficient traffic manage such that plane arrive at large airports similar to Heathrow and Gatwick at a time when they can go true in to a alighting rsther than than having to come in a stack.
"Having more arguable data about timing and where all the plane are will broach outrageous extra savings in fuel and hothouse gas emissions.
"Better administration of timing means you are not wasting fuel in plane watchful on the belligerent to take off and in plane in the air watchful to land."
At the moment, Egnos provides its service over the European mercantile area, but Mr Tajani mentioned he was really interested to see coverage lengthened to Africa and even South America.
The EC VP, who is in assign of industrial process in Brussels, called Egnos the "father" of Galileo.
That system, that is intended to broach high-precision timing and navigation signals to the whole globe, will start its roll-out this year.
Four satellites will go in to circuit primarily in the forthcoming 12 months to authorize the network's operability. A serve 14 booster will then follow by the finish of 2014.
This 18-satellite juncture of Galileo is costing EU associate states in surplus of 3 billion euros. Completion of the network, requiring 12 additional spacecraft, was not long ago projected to cost an extra 1.9 billion euros.
Mr Tajani mentioned he hoped to consent with associate states how to account the finishing of Galileo after that this year. "I wish to lower this cost," he told BBC News.
"It is probable with many supporters - the commission, the associate states, Esa, and the companies involved. It won't be easy, but this is my strategy."
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
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