The main characteristic of the development satellites was that they had no onboard clock and had to pick up a time signal from the ground. Alternatively, users could use a secondary time source to combine with the navigation signal for positional calculation.

Of the development satellites, Beidou 1D (2007-003A/30323) was retired early 2009 as the early operational satellites came on stream, possibly indicating that its navigation payload was no longer functioning. It remained at 144° east for all of its life, not quite the 140° longitude of the standard location.

Of the others, Beidou 1A (2000-069A/26599) and Beidou 1B (2000-082A/26643) remained on station, supplementing the operational satellites, until late 2011 when they moved to graveyard orbit. By then, several operational satellites were in use.

Beidou 1C (2003-021A/27813) seems to been in use until mid-2012 when it was moved from 110° east, where it had been since launch, to 86°C east. It remained there until 2012 December when it too was moved to a graveyard orbit. Beidou 4 (2010-024A/36590), an operational satellite, took over the station.

Of the operational satellites, Beidou 2/G2 (2009-018A/34779) was never used at a fixed location. It drifted from place to place round the geosyschronous arc, occasionally settling down and then moving on. Two possibilities come to mind in that it may all along have been a test vehicle for use away from the Asia-Pacific region. Alternatively it may have suffered degradation of its navigation signal, making it useless for full operation, so it could have been relegated to an engineering test role.

With the 2012 announcement, that the regional constellation, covering the Asia-Pacific area, was complete it contained vehicles in a combination of true geosynchronous orbit and 55° inclined geosynchronous orbit. The 20,000 kilometre circular MEO at 55° inclination was also in use but it was probably as a precursor to rolling-out global coverage.

China's next move was to be enhancement of the constellation to give full global coverage, to place it on a par with GPS and GLONASS. The aim is to complete this by 2020.

Rollout consists of a mixture of new satellites (Phase 3) in MEO and replenishments of the inclined GEO element of the constellation using second generation satellites. Once completed, the true GEO satellites may be phased out.

The following table lists all launches in connection development and operation of the Beidou space segment. Published locations for the geosynchronous Beidou satellites are (all easterly): 80°, 110°.5, 140° and 160°.