Topics covered:
- Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)
What to study?
- For Prelims: About various Navigation satellite systems.
- For Mains: Significance of BDS and the need for regional secured navigation systems.
Context: China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), touted as a rival to the widely-used American GPS, has started providing global services.
- The positioning accuracy of the system has reached 10 metres globally and five metres in the Asia-Pacific region. Its velocity accuracy is 0.2 metres per second, while its timing accuracy stands at 20 nanoseconds.
- Pakistan has become the first country to use the BeiDou system ending its reliance on the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Significance:
It will be the fourth global satellite navigation system after the US GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.
About BeiDou Satellite System:
Named after the Chinese term for Big Dipper, the BeiDou system started providing independent services over China in 2000. It is being projected by Beijing as a rival to the American Global Positioning System (GPS).
- The full constellation is scheduled to comprise 35 satellites.
- BeiDou has two separate constellations, BeiDou-1 and BeiDou-2. BeiDou-1 also known as first generation was a constellation of three satellites.
- BeiDou-2, also known as COMPASS, is the second generation of the system. It became operational in the year 2011.
What are the various GNSS systems?
The four global GNSS systems are – GPS (US), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China). Additionally, there are two regional systems – QZSS (Japan) and IRNSS or NavIC (India).
Sources: the hindu.
