With the successful launch of the 49th Beidou navigation satellite by the Long March 3B carrier rocket, the satellite networking (satellite technology network mode) of the Beidou-3 IGSO orbit has been successfully completed. The global networking of the Beidou system has entered its final sprint stage.
The chief designer of the Beidou-3 satellite system is Chen Zhonggui, an alumnus of the 86th class of China Southern Airlines. At the end of last year, he also returned to the campus of China Southern Airlines to bring a public ideological and political course titled "Beidou Navigation Satellite" for alumni.
Satellite navigation system is an important infrastructure of a country and a crucial guarantee for its economic and social operations. The Beidou satellite navigation system has grown from nothing to something, from weak to strong, from regional to global. Chen Zhonggui has witnessed the tireless efforts and breakthroughs of 80000 "Beidou people" behind Beidou day and night.
Due to the technological barriers and strict cooperation conditions in the West, the Beidou satellite navigation system needs to independently tackle many core technologies, with a tight development cycle and heavy tasks.
On April 14, 2007, China's first Beidou navigation satellite was successfully launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. This satellite is the first networked satellite in the Beidou-2 satellite navigation system construction plan. According to the relevant regulations of the International Telecommunication Union, the Beidou-2 navigation system must complete the satellite navigation signal transmission from orbit to the ground within seven years. Otherwise, the priority use right of the navigation frequency will be cancelled, and frequency reapplication and relevant international coordination will be required. In fact, it is the best opportunity for China to develop a global satellite navigation system that has been lost.

Faced with urgent research and development tasks, Chen Zhonggui, the deputy chief designer of the satellite at the time, led a party member strike team to improve the integration testing and verification methods. After a week of "5+2" and a day of "white+black", they worked hard for 8 months and finally successfully completed the launch and signal opening of the satellite before the deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union, providing a guarantee for the rapid progress of the construction of the Beidou-2 satellite system.
Compared to Beidou-2, Beidou-3 satellite navigation system requires more functions, higher indicators, stronger robustness, and higher availability and reliability. How to achieve a leap in system functionality and performance in a short period of time is the problem faced by the Beidou-3 demonstration team.
As the chief designer of the Beidou-3 satellite, Chen Zhonggui led the research and development team to repeatedly search for information, establish standards, build models, make layouts, and compile plans, ultimately forming a series of technical demonstration reports that meet the different needs of all parties, laying a solid foundation for the advancement of Beidou-3. Chen Zhonggui once confidently pointed out that the core of the Beidou-3 system is to serve the world with higher precision and performance, making China's Beidou the world's Beidou.
Chen Zhonggui stated that the components of the Beidou-3 satellite have achieved 100% localization, and all core components have been localized, truly achieving independent and controllable capabilities.
For example, the onboard atomic clock, which serves as the "heart" of navigation satellites, was introduced to a Swiss company during the development of Beidou-2. However, the European Union later required the atomic clock provided by the company to have an order of magnitude lower accuracy than the Galileo navigation system. This made Chen Zhonggui and the design team more aware that "key core technologies cannot be bought, cannot be obtained, and cannot be obtained. Nowadays, China has overcome the key technologies of rubidium atomic clock and hydrogen atomic clock, and has used these two atomic clocks in combination on the Beidou navigation satellite to establish a time reference. Among them, the timing accuracy of atomic clocks reaches an error of 1 second every 30 million years, and even surpasses the performance indicators of navigation systems such as GPS, Galileo, atomic clocks, and time benchmarks in some aspects. China's Beidou has become the fourth mature satellite navigation system after the US GPS, Russia's GLONASS, and Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, and is expected to cover the world around 2020.
Source: Yangtze Evening News