/   Home   /   Newsroom   /   Research in China

China Targeting Navigation System's Global Coverage by 2020

Mar 04, 2013     Email"> PrintText Size

China's homegrown navigation system BeiDou is expected to achieve full-scale global coverage by around 2020, a leading scientist told Xinhua on Sunday.

The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) will then be able to provide highly accurate and reliable positioning, navigation and timing service with the aid of a constellation of 35 satellites, said Ye Peijian, chief commander of Chang'e-3, China's lunar probe mission.

"So far, China has successfully launched 16 navigation satellites and four other experimental ones for BDS," Ye said.

China started to build up its own space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing system in 2000 by launching the first satellite for an experimental version of the BeiDou.

BeiDou has since started providing licensed services for China's government and military users in transport, weather forecasts, fishing, forestry, telecommunications, hydrological monitoring and mapping.

However, it is estimated that more than 95 percent of navigation terminals sold in China are GPS terminals.

To compete with foreign rivals, the BeiDou terminal can communicate with the ground station by sending and receiving short messages, 120 Chinese characters in each, in addition to the navigation and timing functions that the world's other major navigation systems can provide.

BeiDou aims to take 70 to 80 percent of the now GPS-dominated domestic market by 2020, a spokesman for the system said in December.

"We hope that the industries based on BDS will hold 15 to 20 percent of the market share by 2015," said BDS spokesman Ran Chengqi, who is also director of the China Satellite Navigation Office. (Xinhua)

CAS Institutes

There are 124 Institutions directly under the CAS by the end of 2012, with 104 research institutes, five universities & supporting organizations, 12 management organizations that consist of the headquarters and branches, and three other units. Moreover, there are 25 legal entities affiliated and 22 CAS invested holding enterprisesThere are 124 I...
>> more

Contact Us

en_about_05.jpg

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Add: 52 Sanlihe Rd., Xicheng District, Beijing, China 

Postcode: 100864

Tel: 86-10-68597592 (day) 86-10-68597289 (night)

Fax: 86-10-68511095 (day) 86-10-68512458 (night)

E-mail: cas_en@cas.cn

 

 

Contact Us

Copyright © 2002 - 2014 Chinese Academy of Sciences