The China Satellite Navigation Office announced completion of two years of testing of BeiDou inter-satellite links, an innovative feature of the GNSS that will reportedly produce greater accuracy for users on Earth. The test campaign encompassed 29 satellites of the third generation of the now global system. Since ground stations in China cannot continuously track and control all BDS satellites — the system lacks a fully global ground control network — the inter-satellite links help establish communication among them. Instructions sent by the control center to one satellite in the constellation are transmitted to all.
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