After the successful construction of the Beidou satellite system, China has also become a country with its own satellite navigation system, which has greatly enhanced China's international competitiveness.
However, the GPS satellite navigation system in the United States was built decades earlier than the Beidou satellite system, which made the GPS satellite navigation system continue from the Cold War period to today, and it is also a mainstream satellite navigation system.
This raises a question, because the service life of satellites is limited, and the past satellites are worse in terms of system compatibility, so this makes GPS satellites from the Cold War to the present, a total of several decades, such a long time GPS satellites have been in service, has far exceeded the service period of normal satellites, so GPS satellites really served for that long? Or is there another reason?
First, GPS satellites are constantly replaced in service
The development of artificial satellites depends not only on aerospace technology, but also on the development of integrated circuits, so when the United States first decided to build a GPS system, satellite technology at that time was still quite immature, completely in order to gain the upper hand in the US-Soviet hegemony.
This made the first batch of GPS satellites launched in 1978 not obvious, completely to serve the navigation after the missile launch, largely military satellites, to the nineties of the last century, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic threat of the United States was greatly reduced, so the first batch of GPS satellites were decommissioned.
With the retirement of the first batch of GPS satellites, the United States began to launch the second batch of GPS satellites one after another, and slowly built the GPS navigation satellite system used today, which has the prototype of navigation satellites in the future. Since 1978, the first batch of GPS satellites have only been in service for more than ten years before being decommissioned, which shows that the service time of GPS satellites is not much longer than that of Beidou satellites.
After the second batch of GPS satellites were put into service, thanks to the commercial value of navigation, the United States began to build the second and third batch of GPS satellites one after another. The number of GPS satellites has greatly increased, and the navigation system has been continuously improved, which makes GPS satellites finally form a huge satellite navigation system under continuous improvement.
The United States has spent decades in the process of building a GPS satellite navigation system, so compared with the Beidou satellite navigation system built by China today, there is an illusion that the satellite has been in service for decades.
In fact, the newly launched GPS satellites are all products of the same period compared to Beidou satellites, and they also have their own advantages in satellite technology, but they are not much ahead of each other. From this point of view, China's Beidou satellite has been in service for more than ten years, which is not a problem at all, and with the upgrading of satellites, China's Beidou satellite will also develop into a huge satellite navigation system like the GPS system of the United States.
Second, satellites generally cannot be used beyond their lifespan
Like most electronic products, artificial satellites also have a lifespan, generally speaking, the design life will not exceed thirty years, of course, there are many spacecraft life beyond the design life, such as China's Tiangong-1 aircraft exceeded the service life.
However, compared with the maximum life of artificial satellites of thirty years, the life of Tiangong-1 aircraft is much shorter, of course, its functions are more complex, and the service cycle of Tiangong-1 is still within a reasonable range, so the spacecraft of most countries today do not have this situation of decades of service.
The design life of 30 years mainly takes into account the synergy of artificial satellites, even if a satellite has lagged behind in technology, but its role in the satellite system can not be underestimated, which is why the satellite navigation system should reissue satellites even after decommissioning satellites.
A complete satellite navigation system, relying on a single satellite advanced technology can be achieved, which requires a huge satellite cluster to achieve, so the GPS satellite navigation system has been replacing satellites for decades after the construction of the satellite navigation system, which makes the satellite navigation system as a whole The number of satellites is stable.
Today's Beidou satellite navigation system is still under construction, so the satellites in service have not been retired due to the expiration of their lives.
Of course, with the continuous progress in satellite technology today, many satellites launched in the early years are still forced to retire because of backward technology, and the GPS satellite navigation system launched satellites in 1997, there has been a situation of successive retirement, this batch of satellites has not reached the retirement period in theory, but technically has lagged behind.
Beidou satellite navigation system because the construction time compared to the GPS satellite navigation system is decades later, so until today there is no like the GPS satellite navigation system, because the technology has lagged behind, began to forcibly retire, from here can also see that the satellites in the Beidou satellite navigation system are not lagging behind the satellites in the GPS satellite navigation system in satellite technology, and can also see the strength of China as a space power today.
Because it was built decades earlier than the Beidou satellite navigation system, people mistakenly think that the satellites in the GPS satellite navigation system have been in service for decades, but this idea is essentially based on a misunderstanding of the satellite navigation system and satellites. In fact, in the decades since the GPS satellite navigation system was built, satellites have been replaced many times, and the real calculated service time is no different from the service time of satellites in the Beidou satellite navigation system.
Therefore, the satellites in the Beidou satellite navigation system are not lagging behind the satellites in the GPS satellite navigation system in terms of technology, which also makes the two space powers almost the same in terms of navigation satellites.