Japan launches sovereign satellite navigation network as GPS cannot reach all of its country

Seven-satellite network is giving Japan something GPS alone could not

by · TechRadar

News By Efosa Udinmwen Published 13 August 2026 2 min read

(Image credit: Getty Images)

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  • QZSS was designed specifically around Japan's difficult positioning environment and geography
  • The seven-satellite constellation brings Japan closer to continuous domestic navigation coverage
  • QZS-7 successfully reached orbit after QZS-5 was lost during launch

Mountainous terrain and densely packed city blocks across Japan can obstruct ordinary satellite positioning signals from reaching receivers on the ground.

Standard Global Positioning System coverage was never built with those obstacles in mind, leaving gaps in accuracy across parts of the country.

Japan has spent more than a decade building its own answer to that gap, and this week that effort reached a new milestone.

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Why Japan built its own system

Japanese authorities developed the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, a constellation designed to guarantee near-constant coverage and sharper location accuracy across the archipelago.

Japan's Cabinet Office states that the system complements GPS by ensuring a navigation satellite remains almost always somewhere above the country.

Japan's islands span latitudes between 20° and 45° North, a spread too wide for one geostationary satellite to cover alone.

The QZSS satellites therefore fly an inclined geostationary orbit that traces a figure-eight pattern when viewed from the ground.

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