China announced that it has started research works to expand coverage and services of Beidou, its domestically developed satellite navigation system, from the current Asia-Pacific region (read our previous report here)to the entire globe. It is expected the first experiment satellite for Beidou’s global coverage will be launched by the end of 2014, followed by three or four more others to test key technologies and to tackle any problem that might occur in real operational circumstances.
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is planned to complete by 2020 and will be able to provide open as well as customized global positioning, navigation and timing services by then.