China sent two new satellites into space, bringing the country another step closer to the full deployment of the Beidou navigation system, its rival to the US-owned GPS.

After a flight time of over three hours, the two satellites made their way into orbit, joining 22 others at an altitude of 20,000km, according to Beidou’s website. With eight satellites evenly distributed on each of the three-plane deployment, each location on earth can now be covered by five or six satellites of the entire system at any one time, a precondition for global service, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing Wang Ping, the chief designer of the third-generation Beidou satellites.

Beijing started in 1994 to develop Beidou, the Chinese name for the seven stars that make up the Big Dipper, to cut the People's Liberation Army’s reliance on the American-built GPS.

The first-generation Beidou was completed in 2000 and worked as an experiment for domestic service. The second generation went into full operation in 2012, providing positioning, navigation, timing and messaging services to China and other parts of Asia Pacific.

The current third-generation, with two more satellites scheduled for launch, is expected to be fully built in the first half of 2020.

Beidou is one of only four global navigation satellite systems, along with America's GPS, Russia's Glonass and Europe's Galileo. Beijing initially intended to join the Galileo bloc but later decided to go its own way. Galileo is expected to be completed by 2020.

China and Russia have a deal to use each other’s satellite navigation systems, with the aim of boosting compatibility and interoperability. China has also made efforts to export Beidou, including striking an agreement with Iraq in September and doing tests in Egypt and Sudan, making it a challenger to the GPS.

Currently most smartphones sold in China, including local brands Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus, are compatible with both Beidou and GPS.

Beidou began its global location service in late 2018 and an accuracy of 5m within the Asia Pacific region and 10m in other parts of the world. In comparison, GPS offers accuracy to within centimetres.

Yang Changfeng, Beidou's chief designer, said that with the new satellites, its global coverage and service capability will be further improved and users can enjoy more functions from Beidou, such as global short-message service.

 - scmp