[IGSMAIL-7716] New BeiDou global service announced

[Oliver Montenbruck]

Dear colleagues,

close to the end of the calendar year, the China Satellite Navigation 
Office has announced the start of a global BeiDou navigation service
(https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e32456a4e31457a6333566d54/share_p.html).

As of Dec. 27, 7:00 UTC the 18 BDS-3 MEO satellites launched so far have 
been set healthy, which yields a total of 21 MEO satellites for the 
global service and an additional 12 BDS-2 GEO and IGSO satellites for 
the regional system. Following some reassignments of PRN numbers, the 
constellation now covers the full range of PRN C01 to C37 described in 
the initial BDS-2 B1I/B2I ICD. PRNs exceeding that range are presently 
only used by some non-operational satellites. Note that the 
"experimental" or "IOV" satellites designated as BDS-3S are not part of 
the operational system but remain in a "testing" status. An overview of 
the current constellation is given in
http://www.csno-tarc.cn/system/constellation&ce=english

At this stage, IGS infrastructure and data processing chains can only 
offer limited support for the new BDS-3 satellites. Even though BDS-3 
has two signals (B1I and B3I) in common with BDS-2, dual-frequency 
tracking for the new MEO satellites is only supported by a limited 
number of stations. The generation of precise orbit and clock products 
is also hampered by incomplete satellite metadata information.

With this mail, we'd like to encourage active support of the new BDS-3 
satellites by all IGS users, station providers, and analysis centers, 
but also equipment manufacturers and the BDS system provider, so that 
all of the new satellites can soon be integrated into the IGS product 
portfolio.

Thanks for your kind support, and a Happy New Year with exciting 
prospects for global satellite navigation!

Oliver Montenbruck and Peter Steigenberger
on behalf of the IGS Multi-GNSS Working Group


-- 
Oliver Montenbruck
DLR, German Space Operations Center
Oberpfaffenhofen
D-82234 Wessling
Germany

Tel.    +49 (8153) 28-1195
Fax     +49 (8153) 28-1450
e-mail  oliver.montenbruck at dlr.de