With the launch of two navigation satellites, China took another step toward building it’s own positioning system with global coverage, the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. Named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, the Beidou project was launched in 1994, some 20 years after the inception of GPS. The first Beidou satellite was launched in 2000. By 2012, a regional network had taken shape, and the Beidou system was providing positioning, navigation, timing and short-messaging services (SMS) in China and several other Asian countries. Beidou is now one of the four dominant navigation systems worldwide, along with GPS, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo. The plan is to set up a constellation of 35 navigation satellites and expand their coverage to the whole world by 2020. The July 25 launch of the two satellites – the 18thand 19thof the Beidou project and the third this year – is part of this plan. 98% of the components for the satellites launched on July 25 were made domestically, including the rubidium atomic clocks that send synchronized signals so that receivers can triangulate their position on earth, the China Daily reports.