back to article China plans global satnav system

With navigation satellite constellations rapidly becoming a must-have for any major world power, China has joined Europe and Russia as an aspirant to match US sat nav technology. The People's Republic has announced that it will upgrade its localised Beidou satellite system to global coverage by 2015. The Chinese state Xinhua …

COMMENTS

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  1. Andrew Moore

    I don't understand why this is news???

    The Beidou 2/COMPASS system has been public knowledge for a while now. Plus GLONASS is quite decent now and an asset to any GNSS system.

  2. M7S

    Collision Alert System required

    Not for users, for the satellites.

    Its getting very crowded up there...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    French ICBM

    >France makes its own ICBMs

    Well, SLBMs...Polaris/Poseidon/trident equivalents.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    If they ...

    provide the service as effectively as the EU attempt maybe it will be running by 2110?

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Old hat.

    "We've got a Battlecruiser and you haven't."

    "We've got nukes and you haven't."

    "We've got a GPS satellite system and you haven't."

    YAWN! So last century.

    Everyone knows that the cutting edge of international, big boys' willy-waving is now:

    "We've got frikkin' laser beams* and you haven't."

    *Bonus willy inches here for shark cranial mount capability.

  6. sig
    Black Helicopters

    But Beidou is rubbish

    Calculation of position is performed at a ground control station in response to a request transmitted from the receiver. This has two fundamental problems

    1. Scalability - imagine millions of vehicle navigation systems sending a request every few seconds, each having to be calculated and returned within a second or two to be of practical use. Every receiver sold would require additional central processing power and bandwidth.

    2. Central control knows where every single working receiver is.

    Mind you, problem 2 could be attractive to a surveillance-obsessed government...

  7. brian turner
    Thumb Down

    ICBM Sat guided?

    Misguided!

    Never in the histroy of journalism has so much twaddle been written about so little.

    Please post a link to whichever loon site says that ICBMs are satellite guided. Please. Pretty please.

    Regards,

    Brian

  8. Doug Southworth
    Thumb Down

    If Chinese satellites

    ...are like any of the other Chinese crap I own, they should only be in orbit for about 2 months until the 80,000KW peak (53 W actual) solar panals die and the paper thin plastic shell cracks wide open from an impact with a space pebble. At least replacements should only be about $14.99 each.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @DOUG...CHINESE CRAP

    The Chinese are as good at making goods as any western country (I exclude cars as we know US cars are shit). However, when people want the cheapest possible, they will use the cheapest parts possible, unfortunalty that means cutting corners (or the corners cutting you)

    As they say, you get what you pay for....

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