China will continue to support developments to keep the BeiDou satellite at cutting edge, following its official commissioning last Friday, July 31.
President Xi Jinping officially commissioned the BeiDou-3 System (BDS). President Xi is also the Communist Party of China Central Committee General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The newly-commissioned satellite network is set to collaborate, and compete, with other existing systems such as that of the United States' GPS, as well as Russia's Glonass and the European Union's Galileo.
A Commitment to Continuing Support
Ran Chenqi, spokesperson for the BeiDou system, said that the giant's conquering of core technologies and its self-reliance were the most significant achievements in the long-standing development. At a press conference on Monday, August 3, Ran said that more than 500 key components for the systems were "100% made in China."
The BDS spokesperson also noted that China would continue supporting the project, encouraging local enterprises to produce components, such as computer chips, for the BeiDou system. Their government is looking at tax policies, loan structures, and intellectual property (IP) rights protection policies to encourage the Chinese scientific and technological scene.
Products developed and generated from the BeiDou projects have been sold to more than 120 countries. It included parts and services for smart ports for surveying projects such as land ownership investigations and smart agriculture applications. Among its foreign applications included an electric grid inspection system in Russia, unmanned aircraft operations in Cambodia, and warehousing management improvement projects in Thailand.
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China's Largest Space System
In the official commissioning of BDS last Friday, the project's chief architect Yang Changfeng, called it the "fruit of the determination and planning by the Party and the central government, of the concerted effort of numerous people involved in the program."
Changfeng added that BeiDou was born from the concerted effort of numerous people involved in the program, also giving credit to the enormous support from the Chinese people.
A letter of congratulations from China's Central Military Commission, read by General Zhang Youxia during the ceremony, described the project as a significant milestone in China's steps towards a stronger space industry.
BDS was made possible through the efforts of more than 300,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists across some 400 universities, institutions, and industrial partners and contractors. Changfeng noted that dozens of distinguished scientists and researchers have participated in the program, from the country's premier institutions--the Chinese Academy of Science and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The final satellite to complete the Chinese network was successfully launched last June, completing the third-generation network (BDS-3). It was carried into orbit by its Long March 3B carrier rocket, one of the world's largest families of expendable launch systems. The rocket took off from Sichuan province's Xichang Satellite Launch Center, delivering its payload in a geostationary orbit some 36,000 kilometers above the earth.
Succeeding weeks after the final satellite launch focused month-long in-orbit tests verified the performance of the 30th BDS-3 satellite, paving the way to the entire system's formal operation. The third generation of the Beidou Navigation System promises to offer global coverage for timing and navigation.
