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BEIDOU-3 M9

Chinese Navigation Satellite (BeiDou-3) · CNSA / China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

BeiDou-3 M9, launched in 2018, is part of China's rapid global constellation build-out. Each BeiDou-3 satellite carries a rubidium and hydrogen maser atomic clock combination, giving the system genuinely competitive timing precision against GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo — the fourth major power to achieve this level of independent satellite navigation technology, after decades of relying partly on foreign systems. Each BeiDou-3 satellite's combined rubidium and hydrogen maser atomic clock system gives the constellation timing precision genuinely competitive with the best GPS and Galileo satellites offer, a technical milestone that took Chinese engineers years of dedicated clock development to reach.