The People’s Republic of China has started to build its own satellite navigation system, Xinhua reported Nov. 2. The planned network, Compass — or Beidou, in Chinese — reportedly will include five geostationary and 30 medium-Earth-orbit satellites. The country is said to be interested in cooperating with other nations to develop its satellite navigation industry and allow the Compass system to operate with other GPS systems.

Unnamed sources were quoted as saying two Compass navigation satellites are expected to launch in early 2007, and that the system will cover China and parts of neighboring countries by 2008 before being developed into a global constellation.

China also is collaborating with the European Union and the European Space Agency’s on the Galileo satellite navigation system.