Asia-Pacific News
China successfully launches navigation satellite
Apr 15, 2009, 5:20 GMT
Beijing - China on Wednesday launched a satellite into orbit for use in a global navigation system, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A Long March 3C carrier rocked took off successfully from China's space centre Xichan in Sichuan province shortly after midnight, carrying the second satellite for China's Compass navigation system.
China plans to launch 10 satellites in 2009 and 2010. The system, comprising of 30 satellites, is to be completed by 2015 and competes with the much-delayed European Galileo global navigation project, as China plans to uses the same radio frequency as the Europeans.
According to experts, this could make the security-relevant aspects of Galileo practically useless. Negotiations between the European Union and China on the issue have yielded no success so far. The party who uses the frequency first, owns it.
China had originally been included in the Galileo project, but was later excluded from decision-making bodies and has been pursuing the development of its own navigation system since 2007.
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