China to upgrade Beidou Satellite System to boost accuracy, services

China will soon begin upgrading its Beidou Navigation Satellite System to enhance the network's overall capabilities and service, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

The office said in a news release on Friday that during the in-orbit upgrade operation, engineers and controllers will optimize the working status of some satellites and strengthen monitoring and maintenance to ensure users are not affected.

The Beidou system currently has 50 satellites in orbit. Its spatial signal accuracy is better than two meters; global positioning accuracy exceeds 10 meters; velocity measurement accuracy is better than 20 centimeters per second; and timing error is less than 20 nanoseconds.

Through its precise point positioning service signal, Beidou can achieve horizontal positioning accuracy better than 0.3 meters and vertical positioning accuracy better than 0.6 meters, the office said.

Beidou is one of China's largest civilian satellite systems and one of four global navigation networks, alongside the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS, and the European Union's Galileo.

Since 2000, 64 Beidou satellites, including four experimental ones, have been launched on 47 Long March 3 series rockets from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. The system was declared complete in July 2020 and began providing full-scale global services.

Currently, more than 50 Beidou satellites are in active service, operating in multiple types of orbits.

According to the most recent statistics from the Global Navigation Satellite System and Location-Based Services Association of China, the overall value of satellite-enabled navigation and positioning services in China reached about 576 billion yuan ($83 billion) by the end of 2024, a 7.39 percent year-on-year increase. The combined output of chips, equipment, software, data, and infrastructure totaled 170 billion yuan that year.

System planners have announced that research and development for the next generation of Beidou is underway.

The new version will be "omnipresent, smarter and more integrated," and upon its completion in 2035, Beidou services will cover not only land and sea but also the sky, outer space, and deep oceans, according to planners.