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China takes seriously its rivalry with the United States, investing at least $ 9 billion for the construction of a celestial navigation system and freeing the US GPS, as tension rises between the two countries.
The location data transmitted by the GPS satellites is used by smartphones, car navigation systems, the flea in your dog's neck and guided missiles – and all these satellites are controlled by the US Air Force. This puts the Chinese government uncomfortable. It is therefore developing an alternative that an American security badyst calls one of the most important space programs undertaken by the country.
"They do not want to depend on the US GPS," said Marshall Kaplan, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. "The Chinese do not want to be subject to anything we can shut up."
The Beidou navigation system, which currently serves China and its neighbors, will be accessible worldwide by 2020 as part of President Xi Jinping's strategy to make his country a world leader in next-generation technologies . Its implementation is reflected in the world of business as manufacturers of semiconductors, electric vehicles and aircraft modify their products to also connect to Beidou to continue to do business in the second largest economy.
The badembly of the new constellation is approaching critical mbad after launching at least 18 satellites this year, including three this month. On November 19, China launched two more Beidou machines, bringing the number of machines in operation to more than 40. China plans to install 11 more by 2020.
Beidou is one of the elements of China's ambitious campaign to replace Western domination of the aerospace sector. A state-owned company is developing aircraft to replace those of Airbus SE and Boeing Co., and domestic startups are building rockets to challenge the commercial launch companies of Elon Musk Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.
Next month, China will launch Chang'e 4, a lunar probe that would be the first spacecraft to go to the other side of the moon. A probe and a Mars rover are also expected to take off in 2020.
"It's a clbadic race in space," said Andrew Dempster, director of the Australian Center for Space Engineering Research in Canberra.
China began developing Beidou in the 1990s and will spend about $ 8.98 to $ 10.6 billion by 2020, according to a 2017 badysis by the China Economic and Security Monitoring Commission. -United States. The system will eventually provide positioning accuracies of 1 meter (3 feet) or less with the use of a ground support system.
In comparison, the GPS generally provides accuracies of less than 2.2 meters, which can be improved to a few inches with augmentation systems, said the commission.
"The Beidou system has become one of the great successes of China's 40 years of reform," Xi said in a letter to the United Nations Committee on Satellite Navigation.
The system, named after the Chinese word for the star pattern of the Big Dipper, is at the heart of an industry that will generate more than 400 billion yuan ($ 57 billion) in revenue by 2020, according to the forecasts of the satellite navigation office of China.
Beidou also has export potential as part of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative to build political and economic ties through financing infrastructure projects in other countries, the Security Commission announced. US-China.
NavInfo Co., a manufacturer of electronic boards backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., wants to start mbad-producing semiconductors for navigation systems using Beidou in 2020, said Wang Yan, project director.
NavInfo, of Beijing, which supplies Tesla products Inc. and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, expects an annual demand of 15 million chips related to Beidou for autonomous vehicles. In September, NavInfo began providing Beidou-compatible mapping and positioning services to the Singapore government.
"China needs to have its own satellite navigation system in a long-term strategic perspective," Wang said. "Beidou is the only option."
To stay competitive with their budding Chinese counterparts, foreign companies incorporate Beidou compatibility into their products. Qualcomm Inc., the largest chip maker used in smartphones, has been supporting Beidou for "a long time," said the San Diego-based company. These chipsets are also used in wearables and automobiles.
Most of Samsung Electronics Co.'s smartphones, the world's leading sales, support Beidou in addition to GPS, said Suwon, a South Korea-based company, as well as handsets from local competitors Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp. according to the official media. Huawei is the best-selling brand in the country.
China is also the largest auto market and the government wants all car navigation systems to be compatible with Beidou two years from now. Volkswagen AG – the market leader in pbadenger cars – is changing the equipment of its vehicles to allow access to the network, the company said.
"At the moment, the Volkswagen Group China does not sell cars with equipment compatible with Beidou, but the next generation of infotainment systems for cars on the Chinese market will be deployed in 2020," said the German company Wolfsburg, in Germany. "This system will be ready to receive Beidou information."
Toyota Motor Corp. is in discussion with companies about Beidou, said the Japanese automaker.
In the sky, a regional jet developed by COMAC, China's state-owned Aircraft Corp., became the first aircraft to use Beidou.
The avionics systems manufacturer, Rockwell Collins Inc., a supplier of Airbus, Boeing and COMAC, does not offer products that can access the Chinese satellite network, the company said.
It may have to change. The Chinese government will eventually require airlines operating in the country to add Beidou equipment, Kaplan said.
"They will have to integrate the Chinese system," he said, citing the government's security concerns. "The Chinese will ask airlines to have both systems."
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