36828 - BEIDOU IGSO 1

Beidou IGSO 1, a Chinese navigation satellite, was launched by a Long March 3A rocket from Xichang at 21:30 UT on 31 July 2010. The craft has an orbital inclination of 55 degrees and will eventually operate from a circular orbit of about 35800 km altitude to cover the Asia-Pacific region. Beidou IGSO 1 will join four other Beidou 2 satellites already in space and is intended to form part of an eventual system, also known as Compass, composed of 35 satellites in geostationary and medium-altitude orbits. The Compass system is expected to be operational for Asian-Pacific users by 2012 and to global users by 2020. The positional accuracy for civilian users is expected to be about 10 m.

Facts in Brief

Launch Date: 2010-07-31
Launch Vehicle: Long March 3A
Launch Site: Xichang, Peoples Republic of China