China decouples from US in space with 2020 'GPS' completion

China announced on Friday that its global positioning system, which will compete with the American GPS system, will be ready during the first half of next year, in a new step in which the rising Chinese giant is independent of American technologies.

According to a report published by the Nikkei Asian Review, the satellite network named Beidou - relative to the Big Dipper constellation - will be the first service to compete with the GPS system operated by the U.S. Air Force, and the prospective network is also known to have a huge base of Users, as more than 70% of Chinese smartphones are ready to use them.

The Beidou network is an integral part of China's long-term plans to control the next generation of telecommunications services, and represents a major challenge to America's dominance of the telecom infrastructure - along with the advances China has made in 5G wireless technology.

According to the Associated Press, the project manager (Ran Shengqi), China intends to launch the last two necessary satellites to operate the Beidou system by June 2020. And by envisioning a system in which the Chinese GPS system works in conjunction with networking technologies Fifth-generation wireless, China can get the lion's share of the new telecom services market.

According to the market research firm CounterPoint's report, Chinese smart phone manufacturers currently account for more than 40% of sales worldwide as of the second quarter of 2019.

It is noteworthy that the Chinese positioning system is not new, as China started working on it since 2000, in China, and then began launching it to the Asia Pacific countries as of 2012. As of 2020, the 35 Chinese satellites network It will override the currently used US system.

Space is a field of strategic importance for the Chinese government, and the country has already achieved important progress goals, including quantum communications supported by its space capabilities, and the first human exploration of the far side of the moon. China has plans to send a probe to Mars in 2020 as it prepares to complete a space station by 2022.

The Nikkei Times - citing Chinese government media - reported that the value of goods and services associated with Beidou Network would reach $ 57 billion by 2020.