China wants to compete with SpaceX
November 23, 2020
Asia Times is reporting that China wants to dramatically boost the number of satellites in orbit while China Newsweek talks about a new enterprise, China Star Net, which will be formed and based in Shanghai.
China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a state-owned enterprise, outlined its plans to preliminarily finish the construction of the Xingyun project, an 80-satellite LEO narrowband Internet of Things constellation, by 2025. The group aims to launch 12 of its Xingyun 2-series satellites in 2021.
China Telecom, a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company, reportedly has an aggressive plan to place over 10,000 satellites in the orbit in the next five years.
“Space in the orbit is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and the onus will be on these latecomers to ensure their satellites will not collide with existing ones,” Xie Tao, CEO of Commsat, a Beijing-based private satellite Internet service provider and a contractor of China Telecom told Chinese media that China should quickly launch its 10,000 satellites so as to gain an advantage over other competitors.
“The low-Earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded and the space land grab is on. Frequency and bandwidth resources are getting even more scarce as there is a rush by countries and private firms to file applications with the International Telecommunication Union for new frequencies,” said Tao.
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