Pakistan’s first, government backed, multi-functional global navigation system will be demonstrated by year end, said the Chairman Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research, Ahmed Bilal with an interview with APP.
The Chairman SUPARCO said that an agreement in this regard has already been signed with BeiDou – a Chinese Global Navigational Satellite System – while ground based augmentation system will be first installed in Karachi region and will have multi functional benefits.
With the deployment of operational reference stations built in Pakistan, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System will offer better location accuracy to Pakistani users.
With this new navigation system, Pakistani users will get the choice of using BeiDou, a safer alternate of American GPS.
BeiDou offers positioning accuracy to within 25 meters, but the precision will improve to 10 meters as more satellites and reference stations are launched.
After Thailand, Laos and Brunei, Pakistan will be the fourth country in the region to get navigation services from BeiDou.
BeiDou has been operational and offering free navigation services to customers in Asia Pacific since December last year. Chinese government backed BeiDou aims at providing a global service by 2020. The Beidou network has 16 navigation satellites over the region, with 30 more due to join the system by 2020.
Chairman SUPARCO said that space technology applications act as a catalysts in socio-economic development. Space Technology Applications are now playing an important role in human life and are being commonly used with full efficacy by shipping lines, airlines, agriculture, medicines, spreading education, survey for dam constructions, road alignments and disaster management.
This Government has already approved the launching of Pakistan’s first Remote Sensing Satellite.This satellite will now be developed and launched into space by early 2017.
To promote Space technology, the Chairman SUPARCO pointed out that his firm is working closely with several universities for incorporation of space science and technology application subjects in their curriculum.
He further elaborated, that to develop further interest in space technology, soon a National Student Satellite Program is being launched to enable universities to undertake satellite development and associated R&D to meet future national requirement.
He stated that Chinese space station is expected to be fully functional in orbit by 2020.If the Chinese open the facility to the foreign astronauts; we would also be the first contenders to send Pakistani Astronauts in space.
SUPARCO undertakes many initiatives, to create awareness among the masses about space sciences and its benefits. One such initiative is the holding of the World Space Week from 4 to 10 Oct every year. This year activities related to this week will be held in ten major cities of Pakistan.
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