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.