The world's third GNSS, after the US GPS and the Russian GLONASS systems, China's Beidou has become operational and is providing location, timing and navigation data for China and surrounding areas. Currently it relies on ten satellites. A further six satellites are planned for 2012 to extend the system to most parts of Asia. The network will be expanded to a total of 35 satellites providing global coverage by 2020. A test version of the project's Interface Control Document is available.
The European Galileo GNSS system is expected to be in an intermediate operation phase by 2015. By 2020 it is planned to have 30 operational satellites providing world coverage.
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