China’s next frontier: Space
China is taking its rivalry with the US to the heavens, spending at least US$9 billion ($13.3b) to build a celestial navigation system and cut its dependence on the American-owned GPS.
Signals beamed from GPS satellites are used by smartphones, car navigation systems and guided missiles — and all those satellites are controlled by the US Air Force. That makes the Chinese Government uncomfortable, so it is developing an alternative.
“They don’t want to depend on the US’s GPS,’’ says Marshall Kaplan, a professor in the aerospace engineering department at the University of Maryland. “The Chinese don’t want to be subject to something that we can shut off.’’
The Beidou Navigation System, now serving China and neighbours, will be accessible worldwide by 2020. Makers of semiconductors, electric vehicles and aircraft will need to modify products to connect with Beidou in order to keep doing business in China.
Assembly of the new constellation is approaching critical mass after the launch of at least 18 satellites this year, increasing the number in operation to more than 40. China plans to add 11 more by 2020.
Beidou is one element of China’s ambitious campaign to displace Western dominance in aerospace. A stateowned company is developing planes to replace those from Airbus and Boeing and domestic startups are building rockets for the commercial launch business. Next month, China is scheduled to launch Chang’e 4, which would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the far side of the moon. A Mars probe and rover are also scheduled for liftoff in 2020.
China started developing Beidou in the 1990s and will spend an estimated US$8.98b to US$10.6b on it by 2020, according to a 2017 analysis by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
NavInfo, a maker of electronic maps that is backed by Tencent Holdings, wants to begin mass producing semiconductors for navigation systems using Beidou in 2020, says Wang Yan, a project director.
Beijing-based NavInfo, which supplies Tesla and BMW, this year began providing Beidou-enabled mapping and positioning services for the Singapore Government.
To help stay competitive against budding Chinese counterparts, foreign companies are including Beidou compatibility in their products. Qualcomm, the biggest maker of chips used in smartphones, has been supporting Beidou “for a long time,” says the San Diego-based company.
Most Samsung smartphones support Beidou in addition to GPS, says the South Korean company, as do handsets from local rivals Huawei and Xiaomi, according to state media. Huawei is the nation’s top-selling brand.
China also is the largest car market, and the Government wants all car-navigation systems to be Beidou-compatible within two years. Volkswagen — the market leader in passenger car sales — is changing equipment in its vehicles to enable network access, the company said.
“At the moment, Volkswagen Group China does not sell cars with Beidou-enabled equipment, but the next infotainment system generation for cars in the Chinese market will be rolled out in 2020,’’ said Volkswagen.
Toyota is in discussions with companies about Beidou, the Japanese carmaker said.
In the sky, a regional jet developed by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, or COMAC, last year became the first plane to use Beidou.
The Chinese Government will eventually will require airlines flying in the country to add Beidou equipment, Kaplan said.
“They will have to have the Chinese system on board,’’ he said, citing the Government’s security concerns. “The Chinese will require airlines to have both systems.’’
The Chinese don’t want to be subject to something that we [the US] can shut off. Marshall Kaplan, University of Maryland.