China invests more than $ 12 billion in satellite conversion to the world's best navigation system

China seeks to move away from the United States on all fronts and one of the key sectors for the future is the aerospace. At present, the US Global Positioning System (GPS) is the most widely used and has global coverage, but China has an alternative for years. During this month of November launched new rockets in space for strengthening its navigation system . Its deployment follows the programmed plan but returned to tighten the relations between the space agencies of the two powers.

The Navigation System Beidou is the Chinese alternative to GPS. A project in progress since 2000 and for which an investment of nearly 11,000 million euros has been made. Chinese planning has three phases. a first whose coverage was mainly in China, a second which began in 2007 and for which 16 satellites were deployed and a third whose objective is to reach 2020 with 35 satellites in orbit of last generation .

A Navigation System to Escape North American Influence

Currently, GPS is used in a multitude of devices, from smartphones to automotive systems. Also in the chips used by guided missiles. However this GPS system is in the hands of the US government and could leave part of the world without coverage if the government so wished. This is why China is developing its own navigation system. The name "Beidou" comes from the Chinese name of the constellation Ursa Major.

In 2003, China joined the European equivalent project of Galileo, but five years later, they found that the collaboration did not meet their expectations and decided to invest in improving your own system independently. During the first phase, Beidou did not use satellites in medium orbit, unlike the US GPS system, the Russian GLONASS or Galileo, which has changed since 2007 with Beidou-2 or better known as COMPASS.

Many devices are compatible with Beidou, but the coverage offered is not wide enough. This would change in 2020, when China plans to exceed 50 satellites and offer global coverage . In early November, at a United Nations meeting, President Xi said that " Beidou's system has become one of the biggest successes of China in 40 years of reforms. "

According to data from the Chinese Office of Satellite Navigation, this GPS alternative will help strengthen the Chinese aerospace industry and will generate more than 70,000 million euros in revenue by 2020.

Worldwide coverage by 2020 and accuracy greater than GPS

The accuracy of the third generation of Beidou satellites slightly exceeds the current GPS capacity. While the US system offers a precision of about 2.2 meters, the Chinese system is able to specify geolocation up to 1 meter or less .

These data correspond to general systems open to the public. However, these satellites also have a more accurate layer for government and military organizations, able to locate positions with an error of about 10 centimeters and a speed of up to 0.2 m / s.

Although, according to known data, only the Chinese and Pakistan governments have access to this level. In September of this year, according to Bloomberg, the Singapore government also activated Chinese positioning services via NavInfo.

By the end of 2018, Beidou covered more than 30 countries in the framework of the initiative known as "Belt Road and Silk".

Although technically more accurate, the Beidou system would have an alleged flaw. Although the GPS does not have to send back signals, a bidirectional transmission system is created on the Chinese satellites, which would consume a larger bandwidth.

Mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi or Samsung have already been providing support to Beidou for years, in the same way as GPS support. But this is not something reserved for Asian manufacturers, since San Diego-based Qualcomm also adds Beidou support for some time in its smartphones and automobiles chips .

New launches of satellites

The Beidou system was initially configured works with 5 GEO satellites, 27 MEO satellites and 3 IGSOs. Although these figures vary depending on the generation used. For example in the third phase, Beidou will have 3 GEO satellites, 3 IGSO satellites and 24 MEO satellites . They also have control centers and a worldwide network of monitoring stations.

On November 19, China launched two twin satellites in medium orbit (MEO). They carry the numbers 42 and 43, although in the third generation, they represent the eighteenth and nineteenth. The launch was managed by "China Academy of Space Technology" and by "China Academy of Technology Vehicle Launch", two organizations related to the Chinese Space Agency, which already has more than 290 rocket launches. [19659028] Share Beidou vs. GPS: China invests more than $ 12 billion to convert satellites into the world's best navigation system