Another small step for Beidou
By Zha Minjie |
April 11, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA launched its eighth Beidou satellite yesterday to join seven already in orbit.
The navigation and positioning network will eventually consist of more than 30 satellites covering the entire world.
A Long March-3A carrier rocket carrying the Beidou, or Compass, navigation satellite took off at 4:47am from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The launch marked the establishment of the basic system of the navigation and positioning network, said a spokesman.
China will launch more satellites over the next two years to complete a regional network providing precise navigational services for industries and sectors such as mapping, fishing, transport, meteorology and telecommunications in the Asia-Pacific regions, the spokesman said.
The Beidou system is still under test, mainly in China, providing positioning, navigation and telecommunication services. The services will expend to users in the Asia Pacific region in 2012 and a global service is expected to be in operation by 2020.
It is expected that Beidou services will be available at a cheaper price than the current Global Positioning System.
A Beidou system will cost around 100 yuan (US$15), Liu Jingnan, of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said. That's about a fifth of the GPS price.
The system can also be used for telecommunications, Liu added.
Experts say Beidou is one of the four leading navigation satellite systems in the world together with the United States' GPS, Europe's Galileo and and Russia's Glonass.
Currently, the Beidou system is being used for military, agricultural and fishery purposes. Liu said it will be applied to much wider areas such as engineering monitoring, traffic management and rescue misssions in the future.
But Beidou faces challenges ahead.
Li Zuhong, the deputy chief designer of the system, told a forum in March that "the speed of overall deploy is very important for Beidou as GPS leads the way ahead." The statellite design also needs "constant innovation as well as investment during its development," Li said.
The navigation and positioning network will eventually consist of more than 30 satellites covering the entire world.
A Long March-3A carrier rocket carrying the Beidou, or Compass, navigation satellite took off at 4:47am from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The launch marked the establishment of the basic system of the navigation and positioning network, said a spokesman.
China will launch more satellites over the next two years to complete a regional network providing precise navigational services for industries and sectors such as mapping, fishing, transport, meteorology and telecommunications in the Asia-Pacific regions, the spokesman said.
The Beidou system is still under test, mainly in China, providing positioning, navigation and telecommunication services. The services will expend to users in the Asia Pacific region in 2012 and a global service is expected to be in operation by 2020.
It is expected that Beidou services will be available at a cheaper price than the current Global Positioning System.
A Beidou system will cost around 100 yuan (US$15), Liu Jingnan, of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said. That's about a fifth of the GPS price.
The system can also be used for telecommunications, Liu added.
Experts say Beidou is one of the four leading navigation satellite systems in the world together with the United States' GPS, Europe's Galileo and and Russia's Glonass.
Currently, the Beidou system is being used for military, agricultural and fishery purposes. Liu said it will be applied to much wider areas such as engineering monitoring, traffic management and rescue misssions in the future.
But Beidou faces challenges ahead.
Li Zuhong, the deputy chief designer of the system, told a forum in March that "the speed of overall deploy is very important for Beidou as GPS leads the way ahead." The statellite design also needs "constant innovation as well as investment during its development," Li said.
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