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China's space programme
ChinaScience

China’s BeiDou satellite system more visible from space than its US rival GPS, study finds

  • Researchers say a spacecraft travelling at or below an altitude of 2,000km would be able to see 50 per cent more from the Chinese constellation
  • They concluded that the most precise information could be accessed by using a combination of signals from the two navigation systems

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China completed its BeiDou navigation system in June when it sent the final satellite into orbit. Photo: Xinhua
Stephen Chen
China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system is more visible – and may be more of a beacon for spacecraft – than its US rival GPS from near-Earth space, according to a new study.

Researchers from the National Space Science Centre in Beijing found that a spacecraft travelling at or below an altitude of 2,000km (1,200 miles) would be able to see 50 per cent more BeiDou satellites than those from the Global Positioning System at any given time.

They said the positioning accuracy of the BeiDou signal was also on par with that of GPS because it used ultra-precise atomic clocks.

“It is possible to get global coverage and an all-time positioning service for space applications using the BeiDou satellite navigation system alone,” the team led by Wu Chunjun wrote in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Geomatics and Information Science of Wuhan University on Monday.

Precise location information for spacecraft and satellites has traditionally been obtained using tracking stations on the ground – but sometimes there is no ground station.

The information is critical for a space mission since a tiny mistake in positioning could lead to a miscalculation in the orbit of a spacecraft or other problems.

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