China launches another GPS-type satellite
China today successfully launched another of its Beidou GPS-type satellites, using its Long March 3B rocket.
I found this data point from the link interesting:
Real-time, stand-alone Beidou horizontal positioning accuracy was classed as better than 6 meters (95 percent) and with a vertical accuracy better than 10 meters (95 percent). …[However, t]he system will be dual-use, based on a civilian service that will provide an accuracy of 10 meters in the user position, 0.2 m/s on the user velocity and 50 nanoseconds in time accuracy; and the military and authorized user’s service, providing higher accuracies.
New commercial GPS units will eventually add the Beidou constellation, and when combined with data from the U.S, Russian, European, and Indian systems, will likely get accuracies even higher.
The leaders in the the 2020 launch race:
5 China
4 SpaceX
2 Arianespace (Europe)
2 Russia
The U.S. still leads China 7 to 5 in the national rankings.
China today successfully launched another of its Beidou GPS-type satellites, using its Long March 3B rocket.
I found this data point from the link interesting:
Real-time, stand-alone Beidou horizontal positioning accuracy was classed as better than 6 meters (95 percent) and with a vertical accuracy better than 10 meters (95 percent). …[However, t]he system will be dual-use, based on a civilian service that will provide an accuracy of 10 meters in the user position, 0.2 m/s on the user velocity and 50 nanoseconds in time accuracy; and the military and authorized user’s service, providing higher accuracies.
New commercial GPS units will eventually add the Beidou constellation, and when combined with data from the U.S, Russian, European, and Indian systems, will likely get accuracies even higher.
The leaders in the the 2020 launch race:
5 China
4 SpaceX
2 Arianespace (Europe)
2 Russia
The U.S. still leads China 7 to 5 in the national rankings.