China to Deploy Secure GPS by 2010

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."

Comments

Re:I wonder what else China will do...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look carefully at their network. If this was for policing, then the original 4 geo-sats would cover it. But they are building out a full 30+ system. It is not just GPS, but military communications. This is most likely not going to be used for policing, but truly for military use. And that is the problem. China is gearing up militarily. Just in the last several years, they have been launching new attack subs and SSBNs at a rate of at least 1 / per year each. We have spoken about China's shoot down of their weather sats (which is different than our shooting down a crippled sat that was coming down). We have spoken about their using a ground based laser on a US sat. China is now gearing up faster in the military front faster than anybody has over the last 100 years. That includes Hitler's build up in 1934-46, and FDR's 2 year build-up. Add to that the amount of spying going on as well as China's trying hard to hide budgets.

What we are looking at is that China is getting ready to attack, not defend.

Russia and India are now cooperating closer than ever, even while India is pulling closer to UK and America. They are getting worried about China's intention. I suspect that Russia will realize soon exactly why America is pushing their anti missle system. It is not about Iran, or even Russia.

Yes, this is what they have to do.

[Tomji]

No way around it, too much military equipment needs this these days. No one in China doubts that the USA would shut them out of the GPS at the slightest confrontation and the EU is a weakling and would crawl under American pressure. Unfortunatly that will mean that soon India will need it's own system as well since they also don't trust the USA very much. (USA has been funding pakistan through all the wars they had)

Re:1 words; Windows

[Hal_Porter]

The problem with them being involved in Galileo was that it showed them how to build their own GPS satellite system. Which if China ever fights the US will give them technological parity in a very important area. Ever wonder how all those smart bombs navigate? The US DoD didn't built the GPS system so civillians can navigate - the civillian version can be turned off in regions where the US is at war with a technologically sophisticated opponent and the military version left on so only US forces have access to precision location information. This is why China wants it's own GPS system, in case of a major war with the US.

Actually I found an interesting article on this. The French invented a trick to make sure that the US would be unable to jam Galileo in a warzone. US allies like the UK and the Eastern Europeans forced them to not do this and so the Chinese decided to make their own fork.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/643/1

According to an article in last week's Space News, the Europeans and the US are disturbed by China's planned Compass military satellite navigation system. The Chinese are going to try to do to both America's GPS 3 and Europe's Galileo systems what the Europeans, under French leadership, tried to do to the US. Europe originally planned to neutralize the military advantage of the US system by putting their signal on a frequency so close to the US M-code one that any attempt to jam their signal would interfere with the US system's operation: a neat trick that was aimed at giving France a de facto veto over all US military operations. The rest of Europe didn't care to follow France into a conflict of this kind with the US so they forced France to swallow an agreement on this (See "Whatâ(TM)s the frequency, Jacques?", The Space Review, March 1, 2004)

China's existing Beidou navigation network is a clumsy system based on three satellites, (two operational and one reserve) in geosynchronous orbit, launched between 2000 and 2003. Its military uses have been limited, but it is suspected that they include providing guidance for the ICBMs China has aimed at US targets. Above all, this system has given China hands-on operational experience with satellite navigation hardware. Combined with the sophisticated science and engineering data they have been able to obtain from Europe, they are now in a position to begin work on their own military satellite navigation system. Australia, the US, Japan, and India can thank the good folks at ESA and the EU for the subsequent increased instabilityâ"or worseâ"in the region. Kind of scary isn't it that China is spending billions building something which is only useful if they fight a major war with the US.