GPS, or the Global Positioning System, is the oldest and most generally used satellite navigation system on this planet with 6 billion users. GPS is owned by the U.S. government and run by the Space Force, an independent military branch that is organized under the U.S. Air Force. GPS was initially designed as a military tool and is used for things like missile guidance and drone operation. However the technology has also grow to be indispensable to the lives of civilians.
“If we had an attack on the system, you realize, it could really bring so many areas of our logistics and our supply chain, even farming, our transportation system, our airplane system to a grinding halt,” says Rep. Mikie Sherill (D-N.J.), who can also be a co-chair on the House GPS Caucus.
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However the U.S. just isn’t the one country with its own global navigation satellite system. Russia has GLONASS and the European Union has Galileo. The newest entrant is China’s Beidou constellation. Historically, the world of satellite navigation technology has been collaborative, with each country, or group of nations within the case of Galileo, offering use of their respective systems to the international community without cost.
But China has understood the importance of getting its own global navigation system for years, says Sarah Sewall, who served because the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights before becoming an executive at enterprise firm, In-Q-tel.
“The Chinese have said that once they lost the power to trace missiles that that they had launched in considered one of the altercations in the course of the Taiwan Straits crisis, they decided that that was an actual get up call and that they needed to have their very own system to be able to have the opportunity to make sure continued coverage, the degree of accuracy that they wanted, and to not be counting on one other nation for something that was so vital for his or her military operations.”
But experts say China’s Beidou system is about greater than just military might. As GPS did for the U.S., Beidou is spurring massive economic development in China, to the tune of $156 billion by 2025 in line with Chinese state media. Plus, it’s helping the country garner global influence.
“China has tied the export of lots of its other types of infrastructure to the sorts of positioning, navigation and timing data that it provides from Beidou. And it integrates that with China’s 5G offerings and it subsidizes that through its Belt and Road and Digital Silk Road initiatives,” Sewall says.
To search out out more about China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, what implications it can have for the world, and the way the U.S. is working to bolster its own GPS constellation, watch the video.