Beidou vs galileo biography

Before we dive into the differences between the 5 GNSS constellations... It's important that we're all on the same page with the difference between GNSS and GPS.

Many people get GNSS and GPS technology confused.

A good way to think about the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is as the backbone (or underlying technology) behind GPS. The Global Positioning System (GPS) GPS is a GNSS constellation, but GNSS is not always GPS.

GPS is one of the 5 GNSS constellations used around the world.

The 5 GNSS constellations include GPS (US), QZSS (Japan), BEIDOU (China), GALILEO (EU), and GLONASS (Russia). We'll cover each of these constellations in-depth in this post.

The main reason for all 5 satellite constellations is availability and redundancy.

If one system fails, another GNSS constellation can help take over. System failures don't happen often, but it's comforting to know there are backup options.

So what's the difference between these 5 constellati