Successful Launch

The satellite was launched from the Xichang Launch Centre, located in the southwest Sichuan province aboard a Long March 3 launcher.

China intends to launch the complete constellation by 2015 and another 10 satellites by the end of 2010.  The system is designed to provide  support for telecommunications, public security services, meteorological, prospecting, disaster recovery and petroleum exploration.

It is expected to rival the US developed GPS system, Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (Glosnass), and the European Union’s “Galileo” system.

The first Compass satellite was launched in 2007, but prior to that, in 2000, China deployed the Beidou-1 navigation system. This was a first generation  S band system which provided ranging information via a neighbouring geostationary satellite. The system was restricted in coverage to East Asia.

The Navstar Satellite, one the 20 GPS Satellites in the constellation

The US govt has advised that the GPS satellite constellation that run GPS units across the world is close to its life expectancy and no replacement satellites have been launched.

The launch of the replacement satellites have been plagued by delays for the last 18 months, with the first replacement scheduled for November this year.

This has caused some concern, raising questions of the reliability of the GPS network as more businesses and individuals rely on GPS navigation on a day to day basis.

This in the face of increased competition from the European Union (Gallelieo) and China (Compass)