China’s domestically developed Beidou Navigation Satellite System has been widely used in many public sectors and business fields at home and abroad, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

By the end of 2019, more than 100 million Beidou-based navigation chips, modules and other products had been sold.

The system had by then been applied to nearly 6.6 million taxis, buses and trucks around China as well as more than 70,000 fishing vessels across the country. More than 10,000 fishermen had been rescued or received assistance after they used a Beidou device to ask for help.

Over 3,200 navigation facilities along rivers and more than 2,900 maritime navigation establishments now employ Beidou services.

Beidou-enabled functions are also used in at least 50,000 agricultural machines and have improved their operational efficiency.

More than 70 percent of mobile phones registered in China are compatible with Beidou signals.

In the public security field, more than 400,000 portable terminals used by the police across the country have Beidou-enabled positioning functions. Beidou has also played important roles in security work for high-level events such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing in 2014 and the Group of 20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in 2016, the office said.

According to the Global Navigation Satellite System and Location-Based Services Association of China, Beidou has been used in dozens of business and public sector fields in China, including transportation, electric power transmission, fisheries, mining and agriculture. Tens of millions of Beidou-based terminal devices have been sold and are in use.

Globally, by the end of 2019, Chinese products based on Beidou had been sold to more than 120 foreign countries and regions, playing a helpful role in a number of public sector fields.

Beidou had by then been used in land ownership investigations, smart agriculture and intelligent construction, as well as other businesses in Asia, Europe and Africa, the association said.

For instance, Beidou has helped Russia improve its electric grid inspections, made operations more convenient for unmanned aircraft users in Cambodia, boosted management efficiency of many warehouses in Thailand and facilitated construction work in Kuwait.

In China, the overall value of satellite-enabled navigation and positioning services in 2019 was 345 billion yuan ($48.8 billion), a 14.4 percent increase year-on-year.

More than 500,000 Chinese people work at about 14,000 domestic institutes and companies doing business related to Beidou and other satellite navigation and positioning services, according to the association.

Timetable for nation’s space-based navigation program

The drive to establish a domestically developed satellite network for navigation and positioning was initiated by naval researchers in the mid-1960s to meet the needs of marine navigation.

In March 1969, defense technology authorities decided to begin research and development of navigation satellites. That July, the satellites’ overall design, technical requirements and development schedule were decided by spacecraft researchers.

In November 1970, Qian Xuesen, a distinguished scientist and founder of China’s space industry, named the project “Lighthouse 1”.

In December 1980, defense technology authorities closed the program due to financial and technological difficulties.

In 1983, some renowned Chinese scientists, headed by Chen Fangyun, proposed building an experimental two-satellite positioning system. The idea was demonstrated and verified using two communications satellites in 1989.

In February 1994, the government approved and began research and development on a space-based navigation and positioning system, aiming to mitigate the country’s heavy reliance on foreign networks. The system was named “Beidou”.

In October 2000, China launched the first Beidou satellite. In December, the second Beidou satellite was put into orbit to join the first to establish an experimental system. In May 2003 and February 2007, another two experimental satellites were launched to join a trial run.

Beidou’s first mass-production satellite, also the first in its second-generation series, was launched in April 2007. The first two third-generation satellites were launched in November 2017.

Deployment of Beidou’s space-based assets has accelerated in the past two years, with 17 launches placing 28 satellites into orbit.

The China Satellite Navigation Office planned to place the last two third-generation Beidou satellites into orbit before the end of 2020 and achieved this goal about six months ahead of the deadline with the last launch on Tuesday.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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