About forty years ago, the U.S. military began the development of what is known as the Global Positioning System (GPS). Now, in the medium-earth orbit about 20,000 kilometers above our head, the GPS system has deployed 24 satellites, and the ground station captures, processes, and decodes the information data of these satellites, and sends the relevant information to the user terminal - In this way, GPS provides accurate positioning, speed measurement and high-precision time standards to the world.

　　Today, GPS is indispensable in our lives - airplanes, cars and ships use it to navigate; public security, finance, and fire departments use it to monitor and alarm; and many road idiots who travel by car often have to have a It comes with the courage to accompany...

　　Today, when GPS occupies 95% of China's satellite navigation and positioning market, an imagination is often disturbing - if Americans turn off GPS at a critical moment, or "do something" on it, what will happen to our strategic weapons? What about our plane? What about our road idiots? In fact, this is not just imagination and worry, but a precedent to follow. When the situation in the Taiwan Strait was tense in 1996, a large-scale military exercise of the Chinese army was interrupted by GPS signal interruption.

　　Based on the above concerns, major countries and groups of countries in the world began to consider countermeasures, and thus satellite navigation and positioning systems such as GLONASS in Russia and Galileo in the European Union were born. Beginning in the late 1980s, Chinese scientists who had taken precautionary measures also began to work on developing China's own "GPS". At that time, China, with its weak economic foundation, had a very small and low-key space dream. This plan, named "Beidou", did not focus on the world at the beginning of its birth.

　　Initially, Chinese scientist Chen Fangyun proposed a dual-star positioning theory different from GPS to solve the difficult problem of building a grand system in times of financial difficulties. The grand plan of Beidou began quietly in a small office on the third floor of the General Staff Surveying and Mapping Bureau Guest House. With the spirit of exploration and pragmatism of the Chinese people, the Beidou program has gone through many setbacks and accumulated success. Finally, in 2000, the first Beidou test satellite was launched into space orbit.

　　Today, the Beidou system has successfully launched 7 satellites, and the dream is gradually growing. According to the current plan, the Beidou system is expected to launch a total of 12 working satellites by 2012 to complete the service coverage of the Asia-Pacific region; by 2020, Beidou will launch 5 geostationary orbit satellites and 30 non-geostationary orbit satellites, becoming an A satellite navigation system that provides services worldwide.

　　From the original "top secret" to the promotion to the civilian market today, Beidou Project has gone through more than 20 years, and its story is still little known. Recently, "China News Weekly" exclusively interviewed the original participants and the core team of scientists of the Beidou program to unveil its mystery. Around this grand space program, we tell readers the legendary story of the Beidou team, analyze its value in the military and civilian fields, and at the same time present the beautiful and worrisome prospects it faces.

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