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China seeks to move away from the United States on all fronts and one of the key sectors for the future is 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 the space strengthen your 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 This 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 where coverage was mainly available in China, a second one that started in 2007 and for which 16 satellites were deployed and a third that was goal to reach 2020 with 35 satellites in orbit of last generation.
A navigation system to escape the North American influence
Currently, GPS is used in a multitude of devices, from smartphones to car systems. Also in the chips used by guided missiles. However this GPS system is in the hands of the US government and he could leave any 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.
By 2020, China plans to expand the coverage of its Beidou navigation system worldwide.
In 2003, China joined the Galileo European equivalent project, but five years later, they found that the collaboration did not meet their expectations and decided to invest in improving their 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, as China plans to exceed 50 satellites and offer global coverage.. President Xi, in early November at a meeting of the United Nations, said that "The Beidou system has become one of China's great achievements 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.
Global coverage by 2020 and better accuracy 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 Pakistani governments have access to this level. In September of this year, through NavInfo, the Singapore government also activated Chinese positioning services, according to Bloomberg.
By the end of 2018, Beidou was covering more than 30 countries under the so-called "Belt and Silk Road" initiative. Although technically more accurate, the Beidou system would have a supposed 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 help. But this is not something reserved for Asian manufacturers, since San Diego-based Qualcomm is also adding Beidou supports for some time its chips for smartphones and cars.
New launches of satellites
The Beidou system was initially configured to operate with 5 GEO satellites, 27 MEO satellites and 3 IGSO satellites. 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.
China has accelerated the deployment of its satellites. In 2018, there have already been 12 outings, the last two being last week. An acceleration to position itself as a clear alternative to the United States.
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 with "Chinese Academy of Space Technology" and "China Academy of Technology Vehicle Launch", two organizations related to the Chinese Space Agency, which already has more than 290 rocket launches.
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