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China to Deploy Secure GPS by 2010

Posted by samzenpus on from the in-space-nobody-can-hear-the-competition dept.

hackingbear writes "Unsatisfied by the reliance on American GPS navigation systems and not feeling much security joining the European Galileo system, China will expand its 4-satellite Beidou navigation system to a full-fledged, competitive, and encrypted system by 2010."

4 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mmmm. by Anachragnome · · Score: 3, Informative

    Silly me forgot the link........ http://www.space.com/news/070202_china_spacedebris.html

  2. Re:I wonder what else China will do... by jrumney · · Score: 4, Informative

    GPS is one way communication, it does not send anything back to the satellites. To do so would require either a very powerful transmitter on the ground device (say goodbye to GPS in your mobile and other handheld battery powered devices), or a very sensitive receiver on the satellite with the signal processing power to differentiate the weak signals of millions of devices from each other and from the general radio noise coming from earth.

  3. Re:Questions... by Charcharodon · · Score: 4, Informative
    Actually they do have several things like what you are talking about, the thing seems to be cost is why you don't see them in cell towers. They have to be very accurately surveyed to provide better accuracy than GPS.

    WAAS - wide area augmentation system begain deploying a few years back. It has 25 ground sations in the US that recieve the signal and then send corrected signals back up to the satellite.

    The next one, is called LAAS, local area augmentations system, like the WAAS but much more local. It is designed specifically for aviation and is only good in a 20 mile proximity to the airport. It's supposed to be a cheaper replacement for ILS systems.

    Take a look on wikipedia under WAAS GPS & LAAS GPS there are some pretty decent articles on them.

  4. Re:Encryption by dave420 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope. The US system has selective availability turned off, and all new US GPS satellites don't even have SA functionality, so they can't turn it back on later.