Advanced Television

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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