China announced Thursday plans to build a satellite navigation system that will include up to 35 satellites and be working in the Asian region by 2008, state press said. The system, called "Beidou", will include five geostationary earth orbit satellites and 30 medium earth orbit satellites, Xinhua news agency said.
Navigation services open to commercial customers will provide users with positioning accuracy within 10 meters (33 feet), velocity accuracy within 0.2 meters per second and timing accuracy within 50 nanoseconds, the report said.
No details on the costs of the system were reported.
It was also not clear how the Chinese system would rival the American global positioning satellite system or the EU's Galileo satellite navigational system which is expected to be built with Chinese participation.
China would launch two "Compass" navigation satellites next year as part of the Beidou project, Xinhua said.
The system is expected to cover China and parts of neighbouring countries by 2008, before being expanded into a global network of satellites, it said.
Aerospace experts said the existing three-satellite Compass navigation system has played an important role in offering efficient navigation and positioning services for sectors including survey, telecommunications, transportation, meteorology, forest fire prevention, disaster forecast and public security.
The Beidou System
Beidou navigation and position system is being developed by CAST, which is made up of one backup satellite (the third Beidou satellite) and another two Beidou-1 operation satellites providing all time satellite navigation information. This is the first generation of self-developed satellite navigation and position system.
It is a regional navigation system that provides services for road traffic, rail transport, offshore operation and other fields and will give a active impetus to our national economic construction.
Beidou navigation and position system integrates advantages of traditional astronomy navigation and position and ground radio navigation and position, equal to an air radio navigation station, which can decide users, latitude, longitude and altitude positions at any time and all places.
At present, only a few of countries can develop satellite navigation system independently. Beidou navigation and position system has all of basic capabilities as well as some innovations in its position performance.
This system will be mainly applied in national economic construction, providing high performance navigation and position services for our traffic, meteorology, petroleum, ocean, forest-fire prevention, hazard forecast, telecommunication, public security and other special industries, which has a vast application prospect.
The system is currently operating in a normal and good condition.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
