In the days without satellite navigation, night walkers relied on the brightest star in the night sky to identify direction. Today, no matter where you are, Beidou satellite navigation system can give people positioning and direction!

        People can not help but wonder, in the vast universe, who is navigation for Beidou satellite?

        For Beidou satellite flying in the vast space, the only "landmark" that can be referred to is the celestial body, and the sun and the earth are the most important reference targets.

        In order to let Beidou satellite see the sun and the earth's orientation, and recognize its flight attitude, researchers specially equipped it with "navigation three eyes".

        "Navigation three eyes" is composed of two "Sun eyes" which are responsible for capturing the sun's orientation: analog sun sensor and digital sun sensor, and one "earth eye" - infrared earth sensor, which is used to observe the earth's position. Only when the "three eyes" work together can the satellite's position be determined more accurately.

        The vision level of the "three eyes" determines the navigation ability of Beidou satellite.

        In order to improve the eyesight of three eyes, researchers have made a lot of efforts. On the one hand, we have independently built high-performance and high reliability CMOS APS detectors, breaking through the limitations of digital solar sensors.

        At the same time, in order to reduce the interference of celestial bodies, such as the sun and the moon, to the attitude measurement of the earth eye, the first long-life small infrared earth sensor with uncooled area array infrared detector was independently developed in China.

        Several generations of Beidou people have been dedicated to this cause for many years, and are accelerating their integration into the "Beidou" of the world, which will surely shine in space.