China Launches Its Final Satellite To Complete Its Rival To the US-owned GPS System (cnbc.com) 99
China sent the last satellite to space on Tuesday to complete its global navigation system0 that will help wean it off U.S. technology in this area. From a report: The network known as Beidou, which has been in the works for over two decades, is a significant step for China's space and technology ambitions. Beidou is a rival to the U.S. government-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), which is widely-used across the world. Experts previously told CNBC that Beidou will help China's military stay online in case of a conflict with the U.S. But the launch is also part of Beijing's push to increase its technological influence globally.
Battlespace Prep? (Score:5, Insightful)
Experts previously told CNBC that Beidou will help China's military stay online in case of a conflict with the U.S.
Re:Battlespace Prep? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this really is the key phrase:
Experts previously told CNBC that Beidou will help China's military stay online in case of a conflict with the U.S.
Yes of course. It's exactly the same reason that the Russians have Glonass [wikipedia.org]. You don't even have to be in direct conflict with America to care about this. US forces have often interfered with GPS in specific areas in order to ensure they have an advantage over local forces so if you just happen to be operating in the same area, even if you are cooperating with the Americans, let alone supporting their opponents, you might want independent navigation.
Moreover there's been quite a bit of interesting GPS interference in recent years - possibly having caused misnavigation by US navy ships [businessinsider.com] but certainly causing problems for civilians. Some of this seems to be Russians (e.g. it's happened near Syria and Ukraine and other places where Russians were operating) but I'd also suspect China. Having their own navigation system allows the Russians to interfere with the other side's navigation without causing problems for their own troops. I imagine the Chinese saw this and would like some of the action.
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"Yes of course. It's exactly the same reason that the Russians have Glonass " ...and the EU has Galileo.
BTW, couldn't Elon Musk use his satellites for this too? After all, Galileo only needs 26 of them.
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I wouldn't think he'd include the kind of precision clocks needed for GPS in a semi-disposable communications satellite, but maybe the large number would help?
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Some of this seems to be Russians (e.g. it's happened near Syria and Ukraine and other places where Russians were operating)
Governmental interference isn't necessary, GPS interference devices have been available since the late '90s, and plans for building your own have been in the wild since only a few years later. There was a lot of worry in the Pentagon that the Iraqis may have had them before the US invasion, but it turned out that Saddam mistakenly believed that fear of war crimes trials might keep the US from violating the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter.
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Of course, and it's the same reason that the EU built its Galileo system.
Not just for the military mind you, but for civilian use too. The US could screw with GPS over certain regions and cause problems for civilian aircraft, potentially engineering an accident. Shipping too.
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That and China is likely to provide the information streams to their "owned" companies to increase their competitiveness. China is a Fascist state, in both senses of the word "Fascist".
Re:Battlespace Prep? (Score:5, Informative)
China appears to be fascist. Here are the key definitions from Wikipedia:
"Fascism (/fæzm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy"
"Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.[9] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.[9] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.[10][11] Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[12]"
These are very accurate descriptions of current modern-day China. Almost perfectly accurate.
I conclude that the original poster was correct in their characterization of China as fascist.
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Liberal democracy is obsolete though. China can do anything while the USA government is still squabbling on whether or not deploying anti-missile defense is racist.
No, the two US political parties both have a 'my way or the highway' policy and are currently having a massive bitch fight over whose highway has fewer potholes. The rest of your comment is just plain stupid.
Re: Battlespace Prep? (Score:2)
Please don't use rhetorical hyperbole as your literal political position. Makes you come off as a tinfoil hat wearing extremist.
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People in China are planning world domination while people in the US are trying to decide which bathroom they should be using.
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... while they should be deciding what to do with the knowledge that their anti-missile defense has never worked and will never work unless the opponents agree to put transponders on their warheads.
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-50 Ignorant.
Re: Battlespace Prep? (Score:2)
Not accurate at all, actually. Similar in places, especially at the start, but it gets less similar as it goes on.
Re:Battlespace Prep? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascism (/fæzm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy
China is communism in name only and "fascist" is more appropriate. With the actual definition of fascism, china is fascist. China is authoritarian, ultranationalist, dictorial, they suppress opposition, and control social and economic systems. China is the perfect example of fascism.
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"See that bird? It's a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it's called a halzenfugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird. You only know something about people; what they call the bird. Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way."
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That and China is likely to provide the information streams to their "owned" companies to increase their competitiveness. China is a Fascist state, in both senses of the word "Fascist".
Dude, calling China 'fascist' just makes you look stupid because all that does is advertise to all and sundry that you don't know the difference between 'fascism' and 'communism'. 'Communism' is about as 'fascist' as a 'carrot' is a 'pork sausage'. Now, if you had said 'authoritarian' you might have saved yourself the embarrassment but it's too late now.
Wiki: "a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy"
What besides the placement on an arbitrary spectrum do you disagree with here?
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That and China is likely to provide the information streams to their "owned" companies to increase their competitiveness. China is a Fascist state, in both senses of the word "Fascist".
Dude, calling China 'fascist' just makes you look stupid because all that does is advertise to all and sundry that you don't know the difference between 'fascism' and 'communism'. 'Communism' is about as 'fascist' as a 'carrot' is a 'pork sausage'. Now, if you had said 'authoritarian' you might have saved yourself the embarrassment but it's too late now.
Wiki: "a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy" What besides the placement on an arbitrary spectrum do you disagree with here?
Well, the Soviets for example where nowhere near as ultra nationalist as the Nazis or Italian fascists for whom nationalism and race were a type of fundamentalist religion. The Soviets also completely took over the entire economy and nationalised everything. The Nazis never nationalised anything close to as much as the Soviets and the were extremely cosy with the rich capitalists whereas the Soviets had the capitalists all lined up against a wall and shot. Both systems did have one thing in common, they wer
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China isn't Communist, they're a Confucian Dictatorship that wears a Communist flag.
Notice also the complete lack of communes, or any similar sort of economic system. They don't have worker collectives, they have business owners who are entirely independent of the workers, and who are openly superior to the workers. These business owners have to do what they're told by the government, without question, even when the government is dictating investment, product, operations, or financial decisions. That is cle
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In that case the USA is does not practice representative democracy since their electoral system is so gerrymandered and corrupt that you can win elections there without getting the most votes.
That would be the difference between a straight democracy and a representative democracy.
In a straight democracy whoever receives the popular majority is the victor.
In a representative democracy the election is broken into smaller pieces and whoever wins a majority of those pieces is the victor.(in this case, states, and I am not aware of anyone claiming that *state* borders have been gerrymandered)
Straight democracy was shown to readily fall into the tyranny of the majority, and eventual collapse. So the
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Terwin already analyzed your incomprehension of the word "representative," but I just thought I'd add that at the State level, which covers most civic law in the US, we have both Representative Democracy, but also Direct Democracy that can overrule the Representatives.
We don't have a system where the Federal Government can even tell State and local governments what to do, much less business owners.
You don't seem to have understood any of the words at all.
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Obama bombed more countries than any president since Truman.
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It's simple really, if you switch on your brain.
The wars were inherited from G.W. Bush. The Nobel peace price for Obama was meant as a hopeful incentive to the new US president to stop all those disastrous conflicts in the Middle East and make the world a safer, more peaceful place.
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Really? We don't have troops occupying Iraq and Afghanistan any longer? When did that happen? IIRC it was just recently that the Iraqi congress voted for the 4th time to request that the US troops leave what is supposed to be their country. (Maybe it's more than 4 times, I've lost track.)
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The populations of Libya and Syria may disagree with you.
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I doubt they would given that both countries ended up in a war directly due to far earlier interference.
If I threw a hand-grenade into a house just as I signed the deed of the land over to you, would you claim that you blew up the house or that I did?
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The wars were inherited from G.W. Bush. The populations of Libya and Syria may disagree with you.
Syria was a direct consequence of Bush's genius idea to disband the Iraqi army. Most of the leaders of ISIS were Iraqi and most of their officers ex-Iraqi army. Syria is just another conflagration caused by embers of operation Iraqi freedom being blown over the Syrian border.
Re: USA has itself to blame for this (Score:2)
The war on terror. It's so vague that it can be applied anywhere.
Any President that continued to kill ununiformed people have failed at peace. That includes President Obama.
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So did Henry Kissinger, who still cannot travel to several countries because of war crime charges against him. So did unrepentant terrorists Menachim Begin and Yassar Arafat.
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Regardless of Trump, the rest of the world had been developing their own navigation systems for many years, and it always made sense for them to do this. But this wouldn't be /. without people trying to stir up trouble.
BeiDou was conceived in the 1980s and they started launching satellites in the early 2000's
Soviet Union started launching navigational satellites in the late 1960s, with GLONASS launches starting in the 1980s
The EU system "Galileo" started launching test satellites in 2005
But I am curious
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Re: USA has itself to blame for this (Score:2)
He's a convenient symbol for a sickness that has is now finally coming to a head. A fat orange head that is about to rupture.
Self-described liberals could have avoided this decades ago. American voters could have applied their large brain instead of their smaller second brain. Lots and lots of blame to spread around.
I consider Donald Trump to be more of a natural disaster than a people capable of being held responsible.
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The US GPS system features a second encrypted signal that is also more resistant to jamming. Its that capability that other nations want. You never know when USA decides they want to murder your citizens.
It's not just the encrypted signal, which people seem to have figured out how to interfere with (repeat with a time delay at higher power is my understanding of one technique). There are also special, better directional military receivers. Especially for planes, if you take your signal from above you only, or better point directly at the satellite, then it's very difficult for a jammer that isn't directly between you and the satellite to interfere.
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A lot of GPS relies on ground station signals as well these days - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That, plus the fact that the GPS satellite might not be "above" when its near the horizon means you can't guarantee where the signal comes from.
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A lot of GPS relies on ground station signals as well these days - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
For obvious reasons (they want to keep moving) differential GPS isn't the main mode of military use.
That, plus the fact that the GPS satellite might not be "above" when its near the horizon means you can't guarantee where the signal comes from.
Excluding the differential case (where the signal to the base station is separate and I would guess could be protected differently if needed?) it's okay to cut off some satellites if you have enough other ones. You just select a more limited section of the sky and go with that. This will work especially great with aircraft which, since they are mostly high up, have a much better sky view anyway. None of th
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You never know when USA decides they want to murder your citizens.
and dont you forget it ;-)
Also, if anyone thinks the USA doesn't have a thousand other systems in the back pocket you would be very mistaken.
Your turn now, EU! (Score:5, Insightful)
GLONASS is online, now Beidou.
Come on Europe! Finish off Galileo! Lets get at least one system built primarily for commercial use, so we'll have something to use when the militarys of the world are busy trying to deny each other their systems.
And the rest of the time, I want to see tri and quad systems for all sorts of fun projects.
Millimetre accuracy(Without using the high accuracy/encrypted data) when all the systems are tied together or simply allow each system to act as a check against the other. We rely on this tech for so many things the world over. We need backups at the very least.
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Galileo is already working.
My phone supports all four (GPS, GLONASS, Beidou and Galileo) and locks onto satellites of all four, and gets fixes from all four, and combines them to provide very accurate (and fast) location data.
Indoors, I get 2m accuracy, without even trying to be near a window. Outside I can't find an app that will tell you how accurate it actually is past "1m".
Re:Your turn now, EU! (Score:5, Interesting)
Out of curiosity, what phone are you using that supports all 4?
Re:Your turn now, EU! (Score:5, Informative)
My Galaxy S8 (SM-G950F) supports pretty much every satellite navigation system I'd want to use. From Australia, I can tune GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and the Japanese QZSS augmentation service. I believe it also supports the WAAS and EGNOS augmentation services, but they're not visible from where I am right now.
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Galileo and GPS are on the same L1 frequency, so most GPS receivers already track both by default, and many don't even have a setting to filter one set out if you only wanted to use one of them. It is just extra satellites in the constellation at a different orbit. GLONASS is only a slightly different frequency and can use the same antenna, so support for that is fairly common. So probably any high end phone with Beidou support, which I guess means Chinese phones.
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Galileo is already working.
Working and finished are two different things. Technically Beidou has been "working" for 10 years now.
Social Credit System? (Score:1)
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Huh? Trashtalking the Dear Leader?? I thought you were for Trump, not against him?
This may surprise you, but most Trump supporters have lots of issues with the guy. Still better than the opposition though. Frankly if Biden came out and said something like "minorities have it really hard and we need to help them, but white people have their own problems too so lets help everyone!" then I would vote democrat like I did in 2008/2012 before Hillary said the primary victims in war are women.
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Bullshit. You people keep repeating that narrative. "Trump is bad; but, But, BUT... her EMAILS! Blah, blah, blah, Bengazi." and so on. But it wasn't just Hillary. According to Wikipedia, you people had SEVENTEEN major candidates in your 2016 primary. And you also rejected SIXTEEN of them, any one of which would have been a better choice, in favor of your Dear jaundiced Leader.
Did you nominate a principled republican who understands that the winner governs for ALL of the people, not just those who kiss
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And you also rejected SIXTEEN of them
Not really, in important locations it was apparently the voting machines that rejected everyone except "She whose turn it was". The issues with the voting system have been known since the late-90s, but neither side has done anything but pretend that it's just a "conspiracy theory" because both sides use it.
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Nonsense (Score:2)
But why would anyone want to say anything bad about the glorious leader?
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We all benefit from increased accuracy (Score:5, Interesting)
As the other poster mentioned, most phones can see satellites from all four constellations and use all of them to get a more accurate fix, and also work better in the presence of trees, buildings, etc. I've set up my own GPS RTK base station for my farm using the amazing ZED-F9P receiver, and it is currently serving up observations for GPS, Beidou, Galileo, and Glonass, which roving receivers are using to get solutions accurate to about 2 cm. A new method of corrections, SSR, is coming online through various services, and that promises to get cell phones down to six inches accuracy (or better) across an entire continent without the need for a nearby base station. Pretty amazing stuff.
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Re:We all benefit from increased accuracy (Score:5, Informative)
At least with the RTK stations that I've dealt with, that 2cm is relative accuracy (ie accurate to 2cm with respect to the base station). Typically you'll setup the base station on a surveyed point, and measure everything relative to that.
Remember, the thing that defines property boundaries, locations, etc... Is not the absolute latitude/longitude of the corners or anything, but rather the position relative to the local survey system. So finding the corners of your property isn't a matter of finding their lat/lon on the GPS, but rather finding out where they are in relation to the various survey monuments that are in your area.
This can become quite important in, say seismically active areas, as even if the ground moves 2 or 3 feet, your property line moves along with it.
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There are national standards for absolute position, though. To survey in a base station you can collect observations for a period of many hours, and then post process them to get an absolute position that should be very accurate vs any other calibrated base station. In Canada the standards are set by Natural Resources Canada's Canadian Geodetic Survey group. They have a web form to upload data to for processing, which I plan to do once I have established a permanent base station.
But good point about rela
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Definitely *with* differential, from my own base station. Fixes to 2cm in about 30 seconds from power on, which is pretty amazing.
SSR is also a differential system, and requires a channel of some kind into the receiver (satellite-based in the future like WAAS perhaps?). SSR is similar to RTK, but does not require a local base station. I'm not sure how it all works, but right now you can get SSR corrections in the US and Europe through a commercial company that provides accuracies under 6 inches. Interne
GPS Upgrade (Score:2)
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In 1993 barely anyone knew what GPS is in USA, much less in the rest of the world. It took off only the the 21st century. Yes, it was amazing, but other nations are catching up quickly.
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No you're just young. In 1990 and beyond was big thing, GM ONIS and GuideStar, Mazda Eunos Cosmo, Alpine.
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So a bunch of really rich people who buy absolutely top of the line brand new vehicles knew what it was. You're both right, that definitely qualifies as "barely anyone".
Sorry but GPS didn't become a household name until the rise of personal handheld navigation systems and that was well and truly in the 21st century. A few explorers and enthusiasts having bulky hand held GPS units doesn't mean it didn't really take off in the 21st century.
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The copyright for my Lowrance Globalnav 200 is 1996, so that would have been when my dad bought it to go fishing in Lake Michigan. It wasn't an extravagant purchase, and he wasn't rich (he had a two-person remodeling business). He bought it at the Ace Hardware in their small town, so it wasn't even a rare item.
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not "rich", middle class with good salaries, since a few of my friends had that stuff but none of them millionaires.
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GPS couldn't really take off in civilian capacity until Selective Availability was turned off in May 2000 - until that point, all you could get was 100m accuracy, which wasn't enough for applications like in-car navigation etc. Once SA was turned off, civilian uptake exploded.
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The GPS satellites are constantly getting replaced with newer models, a whole new batch is being built at the moment to start launching in 2026, so one has to imagine they are keeping up in the GPS arms race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Target practice (Score:2)
Good target practice for the U.S.'s anti-satellite technology. Maybe we can use one of our famed super duper missiles. I hear they are the best. /s
2020 is so awful, we might as well throw active conflict with China into the mix.
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I think we have some sort of laser shark for that.
How do acronyms work? (Score:2)
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I'm sure the new GPS System is only accessible over a VPN Network.
Obligatory pedantry: It's only an acronym if it spells out a word; otherwise it's an initialism [grammarbook.com].
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Obligatory pedantry: It's only an acronym if it spells out a word; otherwise it's an initialism [grammarbook.com].
Dammit, you're right of course. Though I suspect over time the accepted definition of "acronym" will come to include initialisms. I know the rule - that it's not an acronym - but would never have remembered the correct term without looking it up.
Just what we need . . . (Score:2)
A positioning system that lies to us about where we are to protect the interests of the CCP . . .
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With so many satellites visible now, I think receivers can pretty easily detect which ones are lying. If Glonass, GPS, Galileo, and Beidou don't agree, one of them is lying.
Stop it already. (Score:1)
We don't need yet another system. There are already too many. Already too much crap up there.
Just make sure the US stays in one piece and there's no problem.
9 Dash Earth (Score:2)
I can see it now.
It will have a nine dash line that circles the earth, because some Chinese scholar 900 years ago drew it on a map once.