China on early Saturday morning launched a navigation satellite, part of the country’s “Compass” navigational system, which is expected to provide services to customers all over China and neighboring countries by 2008.
The carrier rocket, Long March 3-A, blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province at 4:11 a.m., and sources with the center said that the satellite had “accurately” entered its orbit, at the height of 21,500 km…
China is one of the few countries that are capable of developing navigation satellite system on its own. Previous reports said it will provide clients with positioning accuracy within 10 meters, velocity accuracy with 0.2 meter per second and timing accuracy within 50 nanoseconds. [Full Text]
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