page_title: BeiDou
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: BeiDou / BeiDou-2 / Operation
caption_attribution_description: English: Ground track of satellite Beidou-M. Made from US government TLE data by GPLed program gpredict which plots the ground track over an public domain map of the world which originates from NASA.
context_page_description: The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is a Chinese satellite navigation system. It consists of two separate satellite constellations. The first BeiDou system, officially called the BeiDou Satellite Navigation Experimental System and also known as BeiDou-1, consisted of three satellites which, beginning in 2000, offered limited coverage and navigation services, mainly for users in China and neighboring regions. BeiDou-1 was decommissioned at the end of 2012. On 23 June 2020, the final BeiDou satellite was successfully launched, the launch of the 55th satellite in the Beidou family. The third iteration of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System promises to provide global coverage for timing and navigation, offering an alternative to Russia's GLONASS, the European Galileo positioning system, and America's GPS.
  The second generation of the system, officially called the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and also known as COMPASS or BeiDou-2, became operational in China in December 2011 with a partial constellation of 10 satellites in orbit. Since December 2012, it has been offering services to customers in the Asia-Pacific region.
context_section_description: In December 2011, the system went into operation on a trial basis. It has started providing navigation, positioning and timing data to China and the neighbouring area for free from 27 December 2011. During this trial run, Compass will offer positioning accuracy to within 25 metre, but the precision will improve as more satellites are launched. Upon the system's official launch, it pledged to offer general users positioning information accurate to the nearest 10 m, measure speeds within 0.2 metre per second, and provide signals for clock synchronisation accurate to 0.02 microseconds.
  The BeiDou-2 system began offering services for the Asia-Pacific region in December 2012. At this time, the system could provide positioning data between longitude 55° E to 180° E and from latitude 55° S to 55° N.
  The new-generation BeiDou satellites support short message service.
caption: Ground track of BeiDou-M5 (2012-050A)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1003", "Image ImageLength": "770", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "LZW", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "4", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:09:23 20:26:38", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6588", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1003", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "770"}