The launch of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (北斗卫星导航系统) on June 23rd 2020 marks the completion of China's self-developed and operated BeiDou network, one of the four global navigation networks, along with the USA's GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo. It also marks the end of the country's dependence on America for an important service: location data.
GPS was the earliest network to provide global location data. The system is owned by America's government, which means American officials could decide to turm off or downgrade the signals coming from GPS satellites. The main purpose of building BDS is to give China full control over a navigation system.
Work on BDS began in the 1990s and included three phases. The first phase was about building the BeiDou-1 system, which started in 1994 and in 2000 provided positioning, short message telecommunication and timing services in China. The second phase一the BeiDou-2 system, which started in 2004, was completed in 2012. The BeiDou-2 ground system not only serves China but also provides users in the Asia-Pacific region with more than ten satellites and offered services above. The third phase involved the development of the BeiDou-3 system, which started in 2009 and was completed in June, 2020. As one of the IGE members, China is always cooperating with foreign countries and use BDS to serve global users with high performance and high quality in scientific research.
BeiDou's satellites are more advanced than those of GPS. In the Asia-Pacific region, BeiDou claims a 10-cm accuracy, compared with 30cm positioning without doing wrong offered by GPS. America began upgrading its system in 1997 but it may take another 15 years to finish the project.
