BeiDou Navigation System (BNS):
- China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has started offering global service.
- It is seen as rival to the US’s Global Positioning System (GPS)
- BeiDou-1 consisted of three satellites and was offering navigation services mainly in China and neighbouring regions. It was decommissioned in 2012.
- The second generation of the navigation system, BeiDou-2 became operational in China in December 2011 with a partial constellation of 10 satellites in orbit and started providing services in the Asia-Pacific region from December 2012.
- The third generation of the navigation system, BeiDou-3 began to provide global services from 27th December 2018.
- China plans to have a total of 33 satellites operating in orbit for BeiDou by the end of 2018 which includes 15 BeiDou-2 satellites and 18 BeiDou-3 satellites.
- China further plans to launch another 11 BeiDou-3 satellites and one BeiDou-2 satellite in the coming two years to form a complete global network for enhancing the global service performance.
- After completion, the navigation system would become an equivalent of the US Global Positioning System, Europe’s Galileo and Russia’s Glonass.
- Applications:
- Civilian services: Navigation, messaging, transportation and weather forecasting sectors.
- Military applications: Ensure privacy for its military communications and missile launches by reducing the dependence on US operated GPS