China launches the last satellite in the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), a 30-satellite navigation system, from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The final satellite is a geostationary earth orbit satellite of the BDS-3 system. This comes 26 years after the construction of the BeiDou-1 officially started in 1994. The first generation of the BeiDou system made China the third country after the U.S. and Russia to have a satellite navigation system. The launch of this last satellite means China will have completed its construction of the global constellation.
In This Story: Russia
Russia spans more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, stretching eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country’s capital.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and since 1993 Russia been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia is a major great power, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. As a recognised nuclear-weapon state, the country possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
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