[Infowarrior] - China Satellite Navigation System Planned for 2010

[Richard Forno]

China Satellite Navigation System Planned for 2010

By Peter B. de Selding, Toulouse, France
Space News Staff Writer
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080505-busmon-china-beidou.html

Chinese satellite navigation officials say they intend to field an  
operational system covering all of Asia by 2010, but they are giving  
few details on the deployment plans for their global system. In  
addition China has yet to complete frequency coordination with the  
United States, Europe, Russia and others.

In presentations April 23 here at the Toulouse Space Show, these  
Chinese officials nonetheless said their global Compass/Beidou system  
would be fully compatible with the U.S. GPS, European Galileo and  
Russian Glonass global navigation constellations.

Like GPS, Galileo and Glonass, Beidou/Compass would be free of direct  
user charges but also feature an encrypted signal for authorized users  
only, presumably including the Chinese military.

Chengqi Ran, vice director of the China Satellite Navigation Project  
Center, said the secure Beidou/Compass signal would be "a highly  
reliable signal dedicated to complex situations."

Beidou/Compass is designed to feature five satellites in geostationary  
orbit and 30 satellites in medium Earth orbit. Ran and Xiaohan Liao, a  
deputy director at China's Ministry of Science and Technology, said  
the first of the medium Earth orbit satellites, launched in April  
2007, is functioning well but is still the subject of in-orbit  
validation.

Liao said China intends to operate a Wide Area Precise Pointing system  
using geostationary satellites. China operates three Beidou/Compass  
satellites in geostationary orbit. Liao said the wide-area coverage,  
to include all of Asia, should be in operation by 2010.

Liao said China wants to ensure that the growing population of GPS  
users in China will have a smooth transition from GPS-only devices to  
devices that receive both GPS and Beidou/Compass signals. He said the  
market for GPS gear in China is expected to reach around $5 billion in  
2010.

China's intentions for Beidou/Compass remain a subject of concern in  
the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan, according to government  
officials representing those countries at the Toulouse Space Show.

China's plans for an Asian regional system are the most immediate  
concern to Japanese authorities, who are developing their own regional  
system, called the Quazi Zenith Satellite System, because its three  
satellites will be in a highly elliptical orbit whose apogee will be  
over Japan and Asia.

Satoshi Kogure, associate senior engineer at the Japan Aerospace  
Exploration Japanese Agency, said some in Japan fear the Chinese  
system and think "this is an important issue for Japanese national  
security."

Kogure said China and Japan have had few, if any, talks about their  
respective systems, although both nations are members of the  
International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems. This  
committee is next scheduled to meet in December in Pasadena, Calif.

"All the [satellite system] provider nations have agreed in principle"  
to seek maximum compatibility and interoperability among the different  
systems to permit users to take maximum benefit from the proliferation  
of satellites now planned, said Anthony Russo, deputy director of the  
U.S. National Coordination Office for Space-based Positioning,  
Navigation and Timing. "But a lot of details still need to be worked."

Europe's Galileo managers are actively seeking Chinese clarification  
on plans for Beidou/Compass so European engineers can freeze their  
plans for the signal structure of Galileo this year, when contracts  
for the satellites are scheduled to be signed.

"Our position with the Chinese is that we need to make sure we all  
have the same understanding of the problem," said Paul Verhoef, head  
of the Galileo unit at the European Commission, which is financing  
Galileo's development. "It has taken the Chinese awhile for them to  
realize that it is in their interest to [coordinate signals and other  
compatibility issues] if they want to be in this community of  
providers."

Verhoef noted that when the U.S., Russian, Chinese and European medium  
Earth navigations are added together, there could be 120 operational  
navigation satellites in medium Earth orbit by the middle of the next  
decade — plus the three Japanese elliptical satellites.