撰写[Global Network Technology Comprehensive Report, Reporter, Fan Junqing] On March 3 this year, Geely, a well-known Chinese automaker, announced that the company’s satellite intelligence center project has started construction in Taizhou, Zhejiang. At the same time, Geely announced that it will launch two self-made geostationary low-orbit satellites this year.
In an instant, "Geely made satellites" became one of the topics that the industry talked about. Some industry insiders said that Geely’s "earth-breaking" big move announced that another heavyweight player went down to the track to compete on the same field, opening a new prelude to the commercial aerospace application field.
When it comes to deep space, Li Shufu can be said to be determined to win. In March, Li Shufu said at the opening ceremony of the Taizhou AIT Center: "Global development has entered an unprecedented technological height in human society, the speed of innovation, and the intensity of change. The global automotive industry is facing huge innovation opportunities. Geely Holdings takes the initiative to embrace the change, leads the development with innovation, creates new advantages of online and offline integration, and unites with global partners to occupy the commanding heights of technology through collaboration and sharing, promotes the transformation of the travel field, and continues to create value for users."
To this end, Geely Holding Group is exploring ways to transform into the field of science and technology while conducting automobile production. Xu Zhihao, CEO of Geely Technology Group, once admitted that the satellite project is the booster for Geely’s transformation to science and technology.
In 2018, Geely strategically invested in space technology company Spacetime Daoyu, and began to lay out the space satellite field, covering the entire industrial chain from R & D, manufacturing to application. At the same time, in the fields of autonomous driving, future travel, drone transportation, and heavy industry machinery, it carried out commercial scenario application tests with well-known enterprises in the industry to promote the commercialization of China’s commercial aerospace. In the following years, Geely Holdings increased investment in digital technology, actively deployed a smart three-dimensional travel ecosystem, and accelerated its transformation into an innovative technology enterprise.
However, at that time, Geely did not respond too much to this aspect.
On the morning of April 24, Geely officially announced through the WeChat official account: "The Geely Satellite project will not only provide infrastructure for its own integrated travel ecology, but also focus on future travel and its space infrastructure building, build an integrated service system for heaven and earth, consolidate the underlying ecological structure of future travel, and provide support for future travel, intelligent manufacturing, drone transportation, urban management and other fields.", made an official response to the "Geely Satellite" project. The Global Network science and technology reporter contacted the Geely official for the first time and communicated with the Geely official about the delicate layout of the "integrated travel ecology of heaven and earth" and more details of the "Geely Satellite" that is about to be launched.
Geely told the Global Network Science and Technology reporter that the legendary "Geely Satellite" in the industry is indeed true. The satellite is developed by Geely’s Space-Time Daoyu, and plans to be launched at Jiuquan Satellite Base by the end of 2020 on the Kuaizhou rocket of Aerospace Science and Industry. And, Geely will send the two satellites into the predetermined orbit at one time. At present, the key loads of the two satellites have completed ground application verification, and the performance indicators meet the design expectations. Now they have fully entered the integration test stage of formal assembly and are about to be transferred to various environmental tests after assembly, such as the vibration test of the satellite with the rocket’s ascending stage, and the thermal vacuum test of the satellite’s space operation at nearly minus 270 ° C. In June, the star-rocket integration test was carried out.
After the formation of Geely’s low-orbit satellite layout, it will enhance the navigation accuracy to centimeter level, which is not only conducive to its own three-dimensional travel layout, but also deeply integrated with automobile manufacturing, future travel, big data and other industries, and continue to create value for users.
It is reported that the core team of Spacetime Daoyu started business in 2014 and is a well-known private commercial aerospace company in China, focusing on the research and development of low-orbit satellites. Spacetime Daoyu is committed to becoming the world’s leading provider of AICT (Aerospace Information and Communication) infrastructure and application solutions.
At present, Spacetime Daoyu has rich accumulation in technology and talents. Spacetime Daoyu has more than 100 satellite R & D personnel, among which the core team members are from national key aviation units. They are the most outstanding and influential experts in China’s space system engineering, cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other fields. Each person has more than ten years of experience in satellite development and national-level major satellite model projects.
After the two satellites are officially put into use, they will form the OmniCloud platform hosted by Spacetime Daoyu. The platform integrates aerospace AI data, industrial Internet and other industries. The platform takes satellite technology (communication, navigation, remote sensing) as the core and satellite information services as the content, providing online services such as satellite cloud products and customized industry solutions. After the scale effect of this service is formed, it will empower users to various businesses including high-precision positioning. After the massive data generated by these businesses is integrated by the OmniCloud platform, data assets and asset value will be realized.
As China’s first "one-hand car, one-hand star" industry leader, can’t help but let people benchmark Tesla, the global leader in the new energy vehicle industry. On April 23, SpaceX sent more than 60 satellites into the scheduled orbit, and the total number of communications satellites in orbit has reached 422. Musk said that StarLink’s goal is to expand its services to global customers in 2021, which means that it will send as many as 12,000-42,000 small satellites into the established orbit to build a global network based on customer needs and satellite performance.
Although Geely did not disclose the specific number of satellites in orbit for its "heaven and earth integrated travel ecosystem", we learned that Geely’s low-orbit satellite layout will provide systematic positioning services for future high-level intelligent driving. In the unmanned driving scene, absolute precision positioning and low latency are required to ensure driving safety, so the high-precision map requirements reach an astounding centimeter level. Behind this is the full-link technology of massive data collection, data analytics and data applications. It can be said that without the support of low-orbit satellite integrated services, future unmanned driving will become nonsense.
Through the combination of "space-based" and "ground-based" methods, Geely’s "integrated heaven and earth" high-precision location-based service will provide centimeter-level location-based services to users in any location around the world to optimize travel experience.
According to Geely: "This set of core infrastructure will undoubtedly become one of the key roles for Geely to break through the technological revolution of the’new four modernizations’ and empower the control of its various car brands."
"At present, Geely Automobile has become the first Chinese brand to achieve the L2 level of autonomous driving, and the configuration rate and market share of autonomous driving functions have reached the industry’s first. From 2020, Geely Automobile will be the first to achieve the L3 level of autonomous driving on 350,000 kilometers of expressways, 22,000 kilometers of urban elevated roads and 30 cities. By 2022, Geely Automobile will serve all participants during the Hangzhou Asian Games, focusing on travel services, and realize fully autonomous driving technology operations in the Asian Games area."
Earlier, Geely also reported: "Geely Automobile is also participating in the construction of the first smart expressway in the country and even in the world that supports intelligent driving and unmanned management – Hangshaoyong Smart Expressway. In the Hangzhou Asian Games area, this smart expressway connects Hangzhou and Ningbo, and radiates to Wenzhou, Jinhua and other Asian Games regions, providing an intelligent travel experience for all Asian Games guests."
In addition, "Geely Satellite" will also provide high-precision autonomous driving navigation services for low-altitude travel under Geely Holding Group. In 2017, Geely fully acquired all the assets and businesses of Terrafugia Flying Car Company in the United States. In addition, Geely also jointly invested with Daimler in Volocopter, a low-altitude travel company operating point-to-point in cities. If Geely’s "heaven and earth integration" high-precision location-based service can be put into operation on a large scale, it will strongly promote the substantive development of this field.
According to reports, this system will also be open to ecological partners. In the future, Geely will also be based on aerospace technology and deeply integrate with smart manufacturing, future travel, big data and other industries to establish an open and win-win cooperation ecosystem.