China successfully launched the 56th Beidou navigation satellite

At 10:49 on May 17, 2023, China successfully launched the 56th Beidou navigation satellite with a Long March-3B carrier rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The satellite is a geostationary orbit satellite and is the first backup satellite of China's Beidou-3 project. After entering orbit and completing in-orbit tests, it will be connected to the Beidou satellite navigation system. This launch is the first mission after three years after the high-density networking of the Beidou-3 project.

The launch of the satellite will further improve the service performance of the system, which is of great significance for promoting the characteristic services of the Beidou system and supporting the large-scale application of the Beidou system. The satellite realizes the on-orbit hot backup of the existing geostationary orbit satellites, which will enhance the availability and robustness of the system, increase the existing regional short message communication capacity of the system by one-third, improve the performance of satellite-based augmentation and precision single point positioning services, and help users achieve fast and high-precision positioning.

      The Beidou navigation satellite and supporting carrier rockets launched this time were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which are affiliated to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. This is the 473rd flight of the Long March family of launch vehicles.