China To Launch The World's Fourth Positioning System, Rivalling GPS

China will soon launch its last two satellites to complete its BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System, which will rival the Global Positioning System of the US.

Last Friday, spokesperson Ran Chengqi for the Satellite Navigation Office of China, during a rare media event, shared the program’s status, as reported by the Associated Press. According to Ran, in December 2019, the country launched satellites that compromised the system’s core, which allows the network to provide service worldwide.

With these last two satellites, the constellation will have a total of 24 satellites, which will almost complete the network. Another two satellites are planned to launch by June 2020 into geostationary orbit, finally completing the BeiDou-3 system, the Associated Press cited Ran’s statement.

Four years ago, the country started its work on the third version of a project that could provide global coverage. BeiDou has become the world’s fourth positioning service. GPS, which went into full operation in 1993 was the first, then GLONASS of Russia was the second, which began full operation in 2011, and the third one was EU’s Galileo that has provided global coverage since 2016.

In 2018, the FCC allowed devices from outside the federal to use some signals from Galileo.

According to Ran, the latest BeiDou satellites will help the network achieve an accuracy of 5 meters in the Asia-Pacific and a 10-meter accuracy in the other parts of the world.

The BeiDou system is China’s important space infrastructure for providing public services to people around the world, and it will serve the world and benefit mankind, citing Ran’s statement.