What exactly is the "Hongyan Constellation"? How is it different from the "Beidou"?

Everyone knows that you need to turn off your phone when you are on an airplane because the presence of the phone will interfere with the signal environment of the airplane itself. However, even so, there will still be a situation where the signal is temporarily lost, or even lost for a long time. In this case, there is something that can solve this problem, and that is the Hongyan constellation system.

This is the "Hongyan Constellation" that China invested another 20 billion yuan to build after Beidou. So, what exactly is the Hongyan Constellation? What is the difference between it and Beidou? How much of a deterrent is it to the United States?

Beidou in the lead

First, let us understand what the Beidou system is. The full name of the Beidou system is the Beidou Satellite Navigation System. It is a mature satellite system independently developed by China. It has multiple functions such as navigation, positioning and timing.

The Beidou system is mainly composed of three parts: the space segment, the ground segment and the user segment. The space segment is composed of various orbital satellites, which are launched in batches at different times.

Just like my country's three-step lunar exploration plan, the construction of the Beidou system is also divided into three steps. The first step was launched as early as 1994, and the third step was not completed until 2020.

It is worth mentioning that after the successful construction of the BeiDou system, my country has applied it in many fields and provided relevant services to many countries. At present, the BeiDou system has been applied in transportation, hydrological monitoring, power dispatching, disaster relief and reduction, and the results are quite good.

Well, according to the operation of the BeiDou system, it is enough for my country to have it. But in the eyes of the country, this is just an appetizer, because in today's rapidly changing technology, if you don't make progress, it means you are regressing.

Compared with the needs of today's mobile device field, the design concept of the Beidou system still has some shortcomings, or it cannot achieve perfect compatibility.

Under such circumstances, the country made the decision of "Beidou in front and Hongyan behind", and invested 20 billion to build the Hongyan constellation system that can make up for some of Beidou's shortcomings.

So, what exactly is this system and what is it used for?

The Wild Geese Behind

When naming special plans or systems, the West often likes to look for names from Greek mythology, Roman mythology or the Bible. These names do have some meanings, but they are not that profound. my country can be considered to have a very cultural flavor in naming, after all, it has a 5,000-year history of civilization.

The Beidou system we mentioned in the previous article refers to the Big Dipper used by the ancient Chinese to determine the direction, which corresponds exactly to today's navigation function.

The Hongyan constellation system originated from "Hongyan delivering letters". It not only represents more perfection and precision, but also means that it is actually acting under the "care" of Beidou, marking the close connection between the two systems.

Unlike the relatively complex and large Beidou system, the Hongyan constellation system is a low-orbit satellite system. Simply put, this constellation is composed of many small satellite constellations and a global data service processing center. It has multiple functions such as mobile communications, broadband Internet access, and navigation enhancement, and is aimed at the Internet of Things and mass satellite communication markets.

Remember we said before that the Beidou system could not meet the needs of some mobile devices of the era, and the emergence of the Hongyan constellation system solved this problem. Compared with the traditional satellite communication system, it is located in a lower orbit, can cover a wider range, and solve the problems of delay and loss.

"Satellite Internet and its era background, in one sentence, is to use satellites as nodes of the Internet and move the Internet to the sky," said Zhou Zhicheng, head of the Hongyan constellation and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

From this we can see that if Beidou is the bright coordinate that guides people in the direction of progress, then the Hongyan, composed of several low-orbit satellites, is indeed like a bird that "transmits information" back and forth. They are connected together to form a huge network.

When the Hongyan system is fully perfected, we will no longer have to turn off our phones to avoid interfering with the aircraft's signals even when we are on a plane at high altitude.

In addition, experts said that the construction of the Hongyan constellation system is essentially to achieve complementary advantages with the medium and high orbit satellites, namely the Beidou system. The specific advantages are as follows.

First, the landing power of low-orbit satellites will be higher, mainly because their orbits are very low. Second, the movement speed of low-orbit satellites will be faster, which is conducive to accurate positioning and rapid convergence. Third, low-orbit satellites can be integrated with navigation enhancement to reduce investment costs.

In fact, there is a default rule of "first come, first served" in orbit. This means that with the rapid development of small satellites and micro satellites today, if we do not seize the opportunity to deploy our own "constellation" in low orbit, then by the time we realize the problem, there may be very few places left above our heads. At that time, the demand in this area will be "stuck" again, which is very uncomfortable.

However, it is clear that under the background of the continuous development of science and technology, it is not only our country that has realized this problem. Many countries have promoted the launch of micro-satellites in recent years, hoping to take the lead in occupying a large number of positions in the low orbit of the earth. After all, "one carrot, one pit". Among them, Musk's "Starlink Project" can be regarded as the most typical one.

The United States' Starlink Project

On the surface, this plan was done by Musk alone, but in fact, after he announced the plan in 2015, he reached relevant cooperation with the US military.

We said above that low-orbit satellites will cover a wider area, which means that a large number of small satellites will monitor the world in low orbit.

The number of satellites that Starlink plans to launch is quite staggering, and the budget is constantly increasing, with the number going from thousands to tens of thousands. On the contrary, the cost of production and launch is not high, so even if a few more are launched, it will not hurt.

It is worth mentioning that the Starlink project was originally proposed for the purpose of monopoly, because when it reaches a certain number and fills the entire low orbit of the earth, if we want to use low-orbit communications again, we will have to depend on others.

Under such circumstances, my country launched the Hongyan Constellation Project, proving that we will spare no effort in the relevant competition. And the initial investment of 20 billion yuan shows our determination to make this happen.

Therefore, the completion of the Hongyan constellation system still has a certain deterrent effect on the United States. After all, in a sense, it breaks their desire to "dominate" the low-Earth orbit. However, this deterrent effect is still very limited. After all, compared with the number of satellites that my country is preparing to launch, the Starlink project can be said to be heading towards "outrageous" and there is no return.

In addition, the Starlink program has repeatedly encountered accidents, and the situation where satellites are uncontrollably approaching satellites of other countries has also made many countries very dissatisfied. After all, when this densely packed Starlink program encounters an accident, it will not only affect its own functions, but it may also damage the satellites of other countries, which is simply a "disaster from the blue."

Of course, the final response and handling results were not very satisfactory. In this case, many people pointed out that the reason for the "frequent accidents" in the Starlink project may be that someone wanted these accidents to happen. However, this is just speculation after all, and there is no clear evidence.

In any case, after its completion, my country's Hongyan constellation system will not only be able to counter the desire of other countries to dominate the low-orbit satellite field, but also meet the basic needs of my country's future development.

Because after the world entered the era of high-speed communication, everything has changed, especially my country's current research on 5G is still relatively advanced. In this way, in the future, when the geese land on the ground, they can achieve perfect integration with various base stations on the ground, allowing mobile devices on the ground to enjoy better services.

The benefits of this kind of predictive engineering may be something we cannot experience now, but one day, it will affect our lives and make more things more convenient and faster! Therefore, let us look forward to the landing of "Hongyan"!

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