China’s military awaits new satellites

By Peter J Brown China wants to become the next big player in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology. Zhang Xiaojin, director of the astronautics department at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, recently confirmed that China will complete its new Beidou 2 or “Compass” GNSS consisting of 30 more satellites before 2015, with 10 or more new Compass satellites scheduled for launch over the next two years. Since the beginning of the decade, when China’s first Beidou (the Chinese word for the Big Dipper constellation) navigation satellites (navsats) were launched, China has moved quickly to transform its small regional navsat system into a full GNSS constellation  …

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