China sends two Beidou satellites into space

China launched a Long March 3B carrier rocket to place two Beidou navigation satellites into space on Monday morning, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

The rocket blasted off at 5:10 am at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan province. After more than 3 hours of flight, the satellites successfully entered orbit, the office said in a statement.

The statement said the launch took place before its preset liftoff time because of weather conditions.

Beidou is one of four space-based navigation networks along with the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo.

Since 2000, when the first Beidou satellite entered orbit, 52 satellites, including four experimental ones, have been launched and some of them have retired. Beidou began providing positioning, navigation, timing and messaging services to civilian users in China and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region in December 2012. The system started to provide global services at the end of 2018.

Currently, there are 41 Beidou satellites in active service in space.