{"id":691612,"date":"2026-03-30T03:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/691612\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T03:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:58:15","slug":"lighthouses-in-space-the-chinese-jam-proof-satellite-network-to-fill-gps-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/691612\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Lighthouses in space\u2019: the Chinese jam-proof satellite network to fill GPS gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese researchers say they have built an 11-satellite network for a jam-resistant, high-accuracy optical navigation system, designed to provide positioning where GPS is unavailable or disrupted, from <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/self-driving-cars-autonomous-vehicles?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">self-driving cars<\/a> and <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/drones?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">drones<\/a> to deep-space missions.Optical navigation has also been used in the ongoing <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/us-israel-war-iran?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">US-Israeli war with Iran<\/a>, helping drones developed by companies such as Asio Technologies and General Atomics operate in environments where GPS signals are jammed.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">While positioning systems such as GPS and BeiDou rely on satellites that beam radio waves, Tsinghua University\u2019s new network uses coded light signals from \u201cbeacon\u201d satellites.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Xing Fei, a professor of precision instrumentation at Tsinghua University who led the project, told Beijing Youth Daily on Tuesday that ancient sailors navigated by lighthouses. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve done is put those \u2018lighthouses\u2019 in space, using light-emitting satellites to guide everything from vehicles to spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The system works by placing powerful light sources on satellites to send coded signals to Earth. Receivers on the ground detect the light and use its direction, along with the satellites\u2019 known positions, to calculate where they are.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1o401188 css-1w1l3op e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774843095_657_maxresdefault.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"SCMPYoutubeVideoPreview-PreviewTitle\" class=\"css-zasw6y e1o401182\">Next-gen drones to carry passengers and cargo at ease<\/p>\n<p>Next-gen drones to carry passengers and cargo at ease<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Because light beams are narrow and travel in straight lines, they are much harder to interfere with than radio signals, according to Xing. Compared with star-based navigation, which relies on faint, fixed stars and offers limited accuracy, it can deliver much more precise positioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese researchers say they have built an 11-satellite network for a jam-resistant, high-accuracy optical navigation system, designed to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":691613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[289726,282636,289727,14498,289725,74,156,104155,29540,83,63377,159,783,21751,67,132,68,289724],"class_list":["post-691612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-asio-technologies","tag-beidou","tag-beijing-youth-daily","tag-britain","tag-change-3","tag-china","tag-france","tag-general-atomics","tag-gps","tag-iran","tag-ministry-of-education","tag-science","tag-space","tag-tsinghua-university","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-xing-fei"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116316124480136591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}