In the era without satellite navigation, people who travel at night rely on the brightest star in the night sky to identify directions. Today, no matter where you are, the Beidou satellite navigation system can provide people with positioning and guidance!

People can't help wondering who is navigating the Beidou satellite in the vast universe?

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

In order to enable the Beidou satellite to see the sun and the earth clearly, and to recognize its flight attitude, researchers have specially equipped it with "three eyes for navigation".

The "Navigation Three Eyes" is composed of two "solar eyes" that are responsible for capturing the sun's orientation - analog sun sensors and digital sun sensors, and one "Earth eye" that observes the Earth's position - infrared earth sensors. The "three eyes" can work together to determine the position of the satellite more accurately.

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

In order to improve the "three eye vision", researchers have made many efforts. On the one hand, we independently built CMOS APS detectors with high performance and reliability, breaking through the limitations of digital sun 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's eye, China has independently developed the first non cooled array infrared detector, a small infrared earth sensor with long life.

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