By Meri Hakobyan, Vazgen Yetumyan

During an international seminar held in Guiyang, China, the participants were presented with the history of the creation of China's BeiDou satellite navigation system, its development phases, and its strategic significance for the country.

Vice president of the Guizhou First Surveying and Mapping Institute, senior engineer, Professor Liu Dongli told specialists from various countries, including Armenia, about the aforesaid system's capabilities, application sectors, and development prospects, the Armenian News-NEWS.am correspondent reports.

As per Liu, BeiDou is a global satellite navigation system independently developed and operated by China, the creation and development of which has gone through three main phases.

“The work on the creation of the BeiDou system began in 1994. In 2000, after the successful launch of the first two test satellites, China began to provide the first navigation services. In 2004, the second phase of the system development was launched, as a result of which, in 2012, BeiDou already provided coverage of the entire Asia-Pacific region. And in 2020, with the full operation of the BeiDou-3 system, it became a global navigation system, providing services all over the world,” Liu Dongli noted.

According to him, after the successful launch of the first two BeiDou test satellites in 2000, China became the third country in the world—after the US and Russia—to have its own independent satellite navigation system.

Liu said that the BeiDou-1 system proved for the first time the importance of transmitting short messages independent of public communication networks. In his words, this opportunity was indispensable, especially during rescue operations in emergencies; in particular, after the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

During the further development of this system, the capabilities of short message transmission were also expanded, thanks to which BeiDou is today not only a navigation system, but also an important tool for contact and communication in emergencies. For this reason, as per the specialist, China considers BeiDou to be one of the most important strategic technologies of the country.

Today, the BeiDou-3 system is used in more than 230 countries and regions, serving about 1.5 billion users. According to Liu Dongli, it is especially important for developing countries, as it provides highly accurate and relatively affordable navigation services.

BeiDou is widely used also in agriculture, transport, infrastructure, and monitoring of dangerous objects. It is used as well for international cargo oversight, precision agriculture, as well as rapid response in emergencies, providing accurate positioning and communication capabilities.

According to the professor, the BeiDou system consists of three main parts: space, ground, and user.

The space part includes satellites operating in GEO, MEO and IGSO orbits, which together ensure the smooth operation and high accuracy of the system.

The ground part includes the main control center, control stations and satellite control systems, and the user part includes the devices through which people use BeiDou services: navigators, smartphones, receivers, antennas, as well as navigation systems for cars, aircraft, and ships.