China Satellite Navigation System Planned for 2010

From SPACE.com:

Chinese satellite navigation officials say they intend to field an operational system covering all of Asia by 2010, but they are giving few details on the deployment plans for their global system. In addition China has yet to complete frequency coordination with the United States, Europe, Russia and others. In presentations April 23 here at the Toulouse Space Show, these Chinese officials nonetheless said their global Compass/Beidou system would be fully compatible with the U.S. GPS, European Galileo and Russian Glonass global navigation constellations. Like GPS, Galileo and Glonass, Beidou/Compass would be free of direct user charges but also feature an encrypted signal for authorized users only, presumably including the Chinese military. Chengqi Ran, vice director of the China Satellite Navigation Project Center, said the secure Beidou/Compass signal would be "a highly reliable signal dedicated to complex situations." Beidou/Compass is designed to feature five satellites in geostationary orbit and 30 satellites in medium Earth orbit. Ran and Xiaohan Liao, a deputy director at China's Ministry of Science and Technology, said the first of the medium Earth orbit satellites, launched in April 2007, is functioning well but is still the subject of in-orbit validation.

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