XICHANG, Sichuan, July 10 -- China sent a new Beidou navigation satellite into orbit on a Long March-3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in the southwestern Sichuan Province, at 4:58 a.m. Tuesday.
The satellite is the 32nd of the Beidou navigation system, and one of the Beidou-2 family, which is the second generation of the system.
The launch was the 280th mission of the Long March rocket series.
China started to construct the third-generation of Beidou system in 2017, and eight Beidou-3 satellites are now in space.
So why launch another Beidou-2 satellite?
"The launch of a backup Beidou-2 satellite will ensure the system's continuous and stable operation," said Yang Hui, chief designer of the Beidou-2 series.
Named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, Beidou aims to rival the U.S. GPS system, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo as a global satellite navigation system. The project was formally launched in 1994. It began serving China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2017.
Since then, the system has provided reliable and free, all-weather and all-time positioning, navigation and timing services to customers in the Asia-Pacific region and has never been out of service, according to the China Academy of Space Technology.
However, some of the Beidou-2 satellites are nearing the end of their lives and need to be replaced by backup satellites. China launched two backup satellites on March 30 and June 12, 2016.
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