Industry News

The “time patch”—the leap second—which has been used for more than half a century to bridge the gap between atomic clock time and Earth’s rotational time, has been abolished. According to a resolution passed by the General Conference on Weights and Measures on the 15th, starting May 20, 2027, leap seconds will no longer be artificially added or subtracted, and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) will be adopted continuously.

“During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we will adhere to the principles of openness and integration, coordination and cooperation, compatibility and complementarity, and sharing of achievements, with the goal of expanding the Beidou industry to exceed 1 trillion yuan within five years and achieving new breakthroughs in the market-oriented, industrialized, and internationalized application of Beidou.”

Recently, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) completed the first-ever calibration and comparison verification of key Beidou parameters in China as part of its Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) time transfer standards. The Chinese Academy of Metrology precisely measured the technical parameters of the two BeiDou-3 signal frequencies—B1C and B2a—laying a solid foundation for global users to obtain “standard time” via BeiDou.

China Time-Space, in collaboration with Chongqing Telecom, Chongqing Mobile, and Chongqing Unicom, provides Beidou satellite text messaging emergency communication services to mobile users in Chongqing. There is no charge for setting up the service; users are charged per message sent, while receiving messages is free. Mobile devices using this service must support BeiDou satellite text messaging. Once the BeiDou function is enabled in the device settings, users can send BeiDou satellite text messages.

In the fields of low-altitude airspace management, flood control early warning, and water conservancy project monitoring, the Beidou system leverages its advantages in providing precise spatiotemporal services to improve monitoring and sensing systems, enhance disaster early warning and emergency response capabilities, and strengthen the foundation for safety and security.

Effective August 1, 46 mandatory national standards and 442 recommended national standards came into effect. Among them, key national standards—including energy consumption limits for relevant products, water allocation quotas for the Yellow River Basin, residential solar water heating systems, brain-computer interfaces, digital twins, Beidou applications, photovoltaic power generation systems, green product evaluation, and tourism services—will provide standard-based support for guiding and regulating the development of emerging and future industries, promoting environmental protection and green development, improving the quality of life for the general public, and facilitating high-quality development of the national economy.