GPS Tracking ROI

China Builds GPS Lite

June 9, 2006: China’s foray into military space satellites has turned out to be as problematic as their endless attempts at building a nuclear submarine that works. Three years ago, China completed a satellite navigation system called BeiDou. Think of it as GPS light, and different, and not very useful. Sound familiar? BeiDou only covers East Asia, but not all of China. But it covers the areas along the coast, and Taiwan. The BeiDou system is less accurate than GPS, slower, but it does allow two way traffic. This is useful for sending short messages (up to 120 Chinese characters so, about a hundred words). Sort of IM (Instant Messaging) class stuff…. Full Article Here:

Rather an interesting little read here. I wasn’t aware of the BeiDou system. It makes a lot of sense for a country the size of China and one with a world-view as different to the US to work up their own system. Doesn’t sound like much, perhaps, but the predecessors to the GPS, such as the Navy TRANSIT system weren’t perfect either.

The part that stuck me most was the Chinese vision of what’s greatly needed in a battlefield system … lost to GPS planners who built the system with the typical DoD “Stovepipe” mentality. You want soldiers to know their position? My system will do that. You think they might need to exchange information with their leaders or each other? Ah, well, you need another system for that. Not my job. One of the most impressive things about the Pentagon and other major command headquarters. It’s very hard to find folks working there who can tell you much about what their job is … but EVERYONE you meet can tell you in great detail what their job is NOT.

A system that sends short text messages back and forth may not sound like something all that impressive, but let me tell you, in the middle of the Iraqi Desert or up north of Thule, Greenland, there are military folks who would kill for that possibility .. or have died, for sure, because of the lack of it.

Strangely enough there are two other “missions” aboard the GPS satellites that DO take data up from the ground. Rumor has it there’s a mission that watches the entire earth’s surface with special sensors to detect nuclear detonations and send back warnings. There’s certainly a third mission that receives signals from emergency locator beacons activated in air or marine accidents and passes the information to search and rescue headquarters. So why isn’t there a low bit rate, life and death command and control channel so that warriors who have used the GPS to fix their position could also order fire support or other battlefield necessities?

You know the answer … “It’s not my job”. Someday, perhaps, our military planners might get as smart as Beijing’s …. But I’m not holding my breath.