China builds global satellite network

China is accelerating the pace of building a giant satellite network that can help the country monitor the world.

According to the morning China Post Office (Hong Kong), while Malaysia Airlines' search for Boeing 777 has not yet yielded any significant results, the project to build its space monitoring network China is receiving strong support from its top leaders.

Now China has put satellites into orbit but mainly these satellites only focus on this country and the surrounding area. The exact number of satellites is China's national secret.

'If we have a global surveillance network, we won't have to search in the dark anymore. We will have a much greater chance to find the plane and detect its final position. There was a plan to expand our regional surveillance capacity, 'said Professor Chi Tianhe, a researcher at the Remote Sensing and Digital Science Research Institute.

After the Boeing 777 was missing, the Chinese Mechanical Institute sent a letter from veteran scientists advising the country's leaders to begin building a global surveillance satellite network .

China is considering building a global surveillance satellite network

Professor Chi said that if the project is green-lighted by the Chinese government, this project could be completed as early as 2 years. But the cost will not be small. The cost for each satellite is 400 million yuan (64 million USD), which means the whole project will "consume" at least 20 billion yuan (3.2 billion USD).

According to statistics from the Confederation of Scientists, there are at least 1,000 satellites operating on Earth orbit, but most satellites serve only communication objectives. Only about 150 satellites are used for remote monitoring, induction and military surveillance.

Professor Liu Yu, an expert at Beijing University of Earth and Space Sciences, said the project would greatly change China's intelligence gathering capacity from the universe.

'Currently international services for observing the Earth are dominated by the United States and European countries. However, if China releases more than 50 satellites for this purpose, the entire page (about satellites) will change, ' Liu said.

But this Chinese project has yet to be fixed and faces some technological problems. One of these is the current Chinese space centers that have to perform other tasks such as launching a spacecraft or exploring the Moon.

Currently, each year China releases about 15 satellites, but for the project to succeed, the country must double that number.

Experts on the universe believe that with the newly upgraded Van Xuong space center in Hainan Island, China's missile capacity will increase, making the project feasible.

According to expert Liu, China also needs to upgrade the quality of equipment on images.

Professor Zhao Chaofang of the Ocean University in Qingdao said that China also needs to develop more ground facilities to mitigate and promote the capacity to send data from satellites to the ground.

'Many Chinese satellites can only transmit data when flying over Chinese territory, so sometimes the data we receive is only a small fraction of the data collected by satellites. To build an effective global satellite network like the United States, we have to expand the underground centers overseas, ' he said.