In a corner the globe often overlooked by the GNSS community, the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) is steadily advancing toward full operational capability, and with noteworthy implications for Europe-linked GNSS technologies.
Established under a bilateral partnership between Australia’s Geoscience Australia (GA) and New Zealand’s Toitū Te Whenua Land Information NZ (LINZ), SouthPAN is the first satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) in the Southern Hemisphere, designed to deliver next-generation PNT services across Australasia and its maritime zones.
From the outset, SouthPAN has embraced a dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) SBAS architecture, explicitly augmenting both GPS and European Galileo signals (E1/E5a). This DFMC capability, when operational, along with precise point positioning via SouthPAN (PVS), will place SouthPAN in the vanguard of regional SBAS programs, offering sub-meter and potentially decimeter-level precision across land and sea without reliance on terrestrial networks.
2025 benchmarks
Late 2025 has seen the successful completion of SouthPAN’s critical design review, a pivotal systems engineering milestone validating the technical maturity of mission design and subsystem integration ahead of full scale deployment. The review was led by Lockheed Martin Australia with strategic contributions from European partner GMV, signaling SouthPAN is on track for integration and testing phases towards safety-of-life SBAS certification by 2028.
On the occasion of the completion of the review, Myra Sefton, Head of the SouthPAN Branch at Geoscience Australia, stated, “This milestone underlines our commitment to providing navigation solutions that significantly enhance safety, efficiency, and innovation across Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. SouthPAN exemplifies effective international collaboration, setting a global standard in satellite navigation infrastructure.”
Also in 2025, Australia and New Zealand expanded SouthPAN’s space segment through a A$252 million contract with Viasat. The agreement extends earlier arrangements originally signed with Inmarsat, which has since been acquired by Viasat, and ensures long-term access to geostationary satellite payloads needed to broadcast SouthPAN correction signals.
DFMC born and bred
SouthPAN’s DFMC service augments both GPS and Galileo, closely aligning with emerging dual-frequency, multi-GNSS standards promoted in Europe and through ICAO.
While it has remained largely in the background of global GNSS discourse, SouthPAN stands apart because it was designed from the outset as a DFMC system, not an upgrade of a single-frequency, single constellation, legacy architecture. By natively integrating both constellations for Southern Hemisphere conditions and supporting SBAS and PPP services, it serves as an early testbed for next-generation augmentation.
