New Beidou navigation satellite sent into orbit

CHINA sent a new Beidou navigation satellite into orbit on a Long March-3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province yesterday.

The satellite is the 32nd of the Beidou navigation system, and one of the Beidou-2 family, which is the second generation of the system.

The launch — at 4:58am — was the 280th mission of the Long March rocket series.

China started to construct the third-generation of Beidou system in 2017, and eight Beidou-3 satellites are now in space.

So why launch another Beidou-2 satellite?

“The launch of a backup Beidou-2 satellite will ensure the system’s continuous and stable operation,” said Yang Hui, chief designer of the Beidou-2 series.

Named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, Beidou aims to rival the US GPS system, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo as a global satellite navigation system. The project was formally launched in 1994. It began serving China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2012.

Since then, the system has provided reliable and free, all-weather and all-time positioning, navigation and timing services to customers in the Asia-Pacific region and has never been out of service, according to the China Academy of Space Technology.

However, some of the Beidou-2 satellites are nearing the end of their lives and need to be replaced by backup satellites. China launched two backup satellites in 2016.

This new backup is not a simple repeat of previous satellites, but has been upgraded to improve its reliability, said Yang. It carries a rubidium clock, which is the key to the accuracy of its positioning and timing.