The Chinese BeiDou (北斗) Navigation Satellite System would be complete this month when its final satellite goes into orbit, giving China greater independence from US-owned GPS and heating up competition in a sector long dominated by the US.
The idea to develop BeiDou took shape in the 1990s as the military sought to reduce reliance on the GPS run by the US Air Force.
When the first BeiDou satellites were launched in 2000, coverage was limited to China. As use of mobile devices expanded, China in 2003 tried to join the Galileo satellite navigation project proposed by the EU, but later pulled out to focus on BeiDou.
In the age of the iPhone, the second generation of BeiDou satellites went operational in 2012, covering the Asia-Pacific.
China began deploying the third generation of satellites aimed at global coverage in 2015.
The 35th and final BeiDou-3 satellite is to be launched this month — the day has yet to be announced — meaning BeiDou has more satellites in its system than GPS’ 31, and more than Galileo and Russia’s Glonass.
With estimated investment of US$10 billion, BeiDou would keep the communications network of the Chinese military secure, avoiding the risk of disruption to GPS in the extreme event of conflict.
Weapons targeting and guidance would also improve.
When complete, BeiDou’s location services would be accurate down to 10cm in the Asia-Pacific, compared with GPS’ 30cm range.
“BeiDou was obviously designed a few decades after GPS, so it has had the benefit of learning from the GPS experience,” Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research Director Andrew Dempster said. “It has some signals that have higher bandwidth, giving better accuracy. It has fewer orbit planes for the satellites, making constellation maintenance easier.”
BeiDou-related services such as port traffic monitoring and disaster mitigation have been exported to about 120 countries, state media reported.
Many of those countries are involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to create a modern-day Silk Road of trade and investment.
In a report last year, the US congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that China promoted launch services, satellites and BeiDou under its “Space Silk Road” to deepen reliance on China for space-based services, potentially at the expense of US influence.
In 2013, Thailand and Pakistan were the first foreign countries to sign up for BeiDou’s services.
Within China, more than 70 percent of mobile phones were BeiDou-enabled as of last year, state media reported.
China’s satellite navigation sector might top 400 billion yuan (US$56.47 billion) in value this year, state media said.
Ahead of BeiDou-3’s completion, satellite-related shares have soared. Beijing BDStar Navigation Co (北京北斗星通導航), which makes chips that receive BeiDou signals, has surged 34.4 percent this year.
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