Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Two of the world's satellite positioning service constellations reached important milestones this week, after the European Space Agency and China's Satellite Navigation Office each launched its own pair of satellites.
Europe's sats were carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that left Florida's Kennedy Space Center on September 18. A day later, China's birds rode a Long March 3B that launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province.
China's sats were the 63rd and 64th members of its Beidou constellation, which currently has 50 operating satellites.
This pair were the last of China's third-generation navigation-sat design. Local media reported that the two satellites are spares in case others falter, and that they include some tech that is expected to be included in fourth-gen sats.
[...] Europe's launch delivered the 31st and 32nd members of its Galileo constellation into space.
"With the deployment of these two satellites, Galileo completes its constellation as designed, reaching the required operational satellites plus one spare per orbital plane," proclaimed ESA director of navigation Javier Benedicto.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday September 27, @12:55PM (1 child)
Talks started 1999, project in 2003, first test launch in 2005, first real launch in 2011, live in 2016, "completes its constellation as designed" in 2024. Gallilujah!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) [wikipedia.org]
But then TFA says 'Europe plans to launch another six Galileo sats during 2025' ... okay.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Friday September 27, @02:06PM
Satellites fall in and out of service all the time. They'll drop the oldest ones out and replace with new ones.
I bought a phone with Galileo among its GNSS for a reason - it's been viable for a long time now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday September 27, @02:16PM (2 children)
If they're just going to continue to enforce their "all maps must be algorithmically skewed from real global positioning coordinates" rule, what good does a navigation network even do?
I guess it might let them aim long range missiles if the US puts the main GPS network on low precision mode? Still seems kinda pointless though.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday September 27, @06:09PM
That is pretty much the only real reason they spent money on this. Everything else, including any civil benefits, is just a nice side effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, @01:35AM
Kind of pointless to make yourself more able to nuke the US in retaliation if the US nukes you?
The US has been the aggressor and instigator for a lot more global bad stuff than China has.
Perhaps that's because China is weaker for now but anyway from the perspective of China, such stuff is far from pointless, in contrast it might even be vital for survival vs an increasingly hostile and potentially unstable US.
That said the US nukes might not be controlled by logic and rationality: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/nuclear-weapons-how-cold-war-major-harold-hering-asked-a-forbidden-question-that-cost-him-his-career.html [slate.com]