Dongfang Hour

View Details

In this episode, I am joined by Dongfang Hour co-founder and former co-host Blaine Curcio to explore the rapidly changing landscape of Chinese satellite constellations. We discuss policies, funding, the influence of the US, the role of commercial companies, and the impact on launch.

Check out Blaine's newsletter, the China Space Monitor: https://chinaspacemonitor.substack.com/
And his LinkedIn where he posts insights on Chinese Space:
https://www.linkedin.com/blaine-curcio

Check out Dongfang Hour's YouTube channel, where most of the content is uploaded now: https://www.youtube.com/dongfanghour
If you like what you see and would like to support the channel, please consider joining our small Patreon community at https://patreon.com/dongfanghour

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com) and our website (www.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

3 Chinese Rocket Concepts for Crewed Spaceflight
The growing trend of rideshare launches in China

Thank you for your attention, and please support us at buymeacoffee.com/dongfanghour !

View Details

This week, we discuss:

A review of the Wentian experimental module
China's IFC market in 2022

View Details

This week, we discuss:

Tianbing/Space Pioneer: one of China's Quirkiest Launch Companies
Launch Takeaways from CASC's 2020 Blue Paper

Thank you for your attention, and if you like what you see, support our work at buymeacoffee.com/dongfanghour!

View Details

This week, we discuss:

A Chinese Version of Relativity Space?
Takeaways from China's Space White Paper
Lunar New Year Greetings from the CSS

Thank you for your attention, and if you like what you see, support our work at buymeacoffee.com/dongfanghour

View Details

This week, we discuss:

Chinese Launch Startups Are Raising an Unprecedented Amount of Funding in 2022
Developments and Trends in Suborbital Launch

View Details

This week, we discuss:

Could 2022 be the Year of Massive Chinese Smallsat deployment?
The Long March 8A: a New Variant of the Long March 8

Thank you for your attention, and please give us a positive rating on your local podcast aggregator!

View Details

This week, we discuss:

The Chinese Space Station's Strategy vis-à-vis Space Debris
A Retrospective Look at the Funding Rounds of Chinese Space Startups in 2021

Thank you for your kind attention!

View Details

This week, we discuss:

China Tests the Module Transfer Capabilities of the CSS Robotic Arm
HiStarlink, a New Startup Developing Laser Comms Technology

Thank you for your kind attention, and don’t forget to leave a comment or a rating on your favorite podcast platform!

View Details

This week, we discuss:

China Confirms Chang'e 6-8 missions
A Close Encounter between Starlink Satellites & the Chinese Space Station

Thank you for your kind attention, and don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! In this special episode, we wrap up the year by going over 8 events that marked the Chinese space sector in 2021 (very subjective, of course!).

If you like what you see, support our work at buymeacoffee.com/dongfanghour

In this episode, we discuss the following:

China Announces a Lunar Base with Russia
The Tianwen-1 Mission (and the Zhurong Rover) Reaches Mars
China SatNet: the Chinese Answer to Starlink
SAR Becomes a Hot Topic
A Big Year in Launch, but That Could Have Been Even Bigger
New Developments with Coastal Launch Sites
Plans for (Sub)orbital Space Tourism
China Begins the Construction of the Tiangong Space Station

Thank you for your kind attention, please give us a thumbs-up!

View Details

This week, we discuss the following:

Failure of Expace's Kuaizhou-1A
Impact on Geespace & other satellite companies
Rocket Pi launches micro-gravity platform Sparkle-1

Thank you for your kind attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

This week, we discuss:

The 2nd Successful Launch of the Ceres-1 Rocket
Deep Dive into the Payloads
Interview with Galactic Energy Systems Engineer - Liu Hong

Thank you for your attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

This week, we discuss:

A CN startup plans to commercialize GEO relay satellites
An interview with the CEO of Landspace: Roger Zhang
Tiangang - a new 36-satellite EO constellation
A busy week/month for the CNSA

Thank you for your attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

This week, we focus specifically on launch updates from the CCAF (China Commercial Aerospace Forum):

Introduction
iSpace invests massively in space tourism
Progress with CASIC’s spaceplanes
Major shift in Deep Blue Aerospace’s Nebula rocket series
Space Trek plans larger rockets
AAEngine goes from engines to rockets
Expace announces an impressive launch cadence
Landspace confirms reusability of the ZQ-2 first stage
Xingyun-3 satellites should be deployed in 2022

Thank you for your kind attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

This week, we discuss:

China betting on sea-based launch services
First China-Africa Beidou conference
Revisiting the concept of US-China space race
Adaspace new round of funding

Thank you for your kind attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

This week, we discuss:

Shenzhou-13 performs a historic spacewalk
Commercial launch startup iSpace sets foot in Hainan
Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 switches to a space sciences orbit

Thank you for your kind attention! Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

This week, we discuss:

Introduction
Spacety Announces a New Constellation in Collaboration with BUPT
Orienspace's New co-CEO and Rockets
Linkspace Develops a Pump-Fed Engine, the Fengbao-1

Thank you for your kind attention. Don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up!

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter and our website.

This week, we discuss:

Mars Express & Zhurong to perform blind data transmission experiments in November
China breaks new launch record, passes 40 launches
Launch vehicle startup Rocket Pi purchases JZYJ methalox engines for the Darwin-1 rocket
Teaser on the 2021 China Satellite conference

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another interviews series episode on the Dongfang Hour! This is the second part of our interview with Molly Silk, released on October 6.
Molly is a doctoral researcher in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy at Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Molly's research focuses on topics such as China's space policy, and cultural, communicative, and cooperative efforts linked to the Chinese space program.

In Part 2 of this episode, we focus on an iconic product of Chinese space culture, the sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth (流浪地球), released in 2019. Special thanks to Aurélie Gillet, a collaborator at the Dongfang Hour, who kindly accepted to be the interviewer (Blaine and I admittedly weren't very familiar with the movie...).

If you enjoy what you see, don’t forget to follow the channel and give us a thumbs-up. Thanks and see you next time!

View Details

China tests its most powerful monolithic solid rocket booster (SRB) to date
Discussion over last week's FOBS test (fractional orbital bombardement system)
Space exploration forum and associated updates

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time.
Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! Also do check out our website (www.dongfanghour.com) as well as our Newsletter, where we cover many more stories every week (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).
This week, we discuss:

Deep Blue Aerospace performs 100m VTVL hop test with Nebula-M rocket
Shenzhou 13 docks with the Tianhe core module of the Chinese Space Station
Long March 2D Rideshare launch sends 11 satellites to orbit

View Details

Hello and welcome to another interviews series episode of the Dongfang Hour ! In this episode, we were thrilled to sit down with Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy at Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Molly's research focuses on topics such as China's space policy, and cultural, communicative and cooperative efforts linked to the Chinese space program.

In this episode, we discuss the presence of space references in the life of Chinese people, the interest of commercial companies to manufacture consumer space-themed products, the role of the Chinese government in the popularization of space, and more.

If you enjoy what you see, don’t forget to follow the channel and give us a thumbs-up. Thanks and see you next time!

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

4 Future Space Projects at Zhuhai
Major Launch Contracts at Zhuhai
Spacecraft and Models Shown in the Exhibition
The Kuaizhou-1A Rocket Returns to Flight after a year-long absence

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletterand Website.
This week, we discuss:

Tianzhou 3 Docks with the Chinese Space Station
The Hainan Space Cluster
CGTN Space Documentary
Space Pioneer's New Round of Funding

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time.
Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter.
This week, we discuss:

The Shenzhou 12 crew de-orbits and returns safely to Earth
Major launch update including Space Transportation and Orienspace
More news on China's Mars UAV

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time.
Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

Chinese smartphones and satellite connectivity
Recap on provincial space policies
Two launches for China's space program

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode (n°50!) of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

Taiwanese rocket company TiSPACE gets launch authorization from Australian authorities
China is working on a Mars UAV
Updates on automobile manufacturer Geely's space activities

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

A turbulent week in US-China space relations
2 launches in a week
China’s Natural Science Foundation publishes the “Guidelines for the 14th Five-Year Plan first batch of projects”, hints at research on a 1-km long super space station

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

The growth of Chinese launch companies measured in 2019-2020 workforce increase
Spacety and T4i Announce Collaboration
The second spacewalk (EVA) of the Shenzhou-12 crew

View Details

This week, we discuss:

A Chinese New Shepard? CAS Space eyes space tourism
Chinese startup Interspace Explore raises “tens of millions” of RMB, plans commercial cargo spacecraft in 2022
Guangzhou adds Satellite Internet to 14th Five-Year Plan

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover many more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

Space Transportation Completes RMB300M Series A round of funding, reveals more info on hypersonic vehicle roadmap
Further hints that China is working on a lunar lander
China Eastern Begins Live TV In-Flight w/ Panasonic

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).
This week, we discuss:

Chinese SAR Wars begin
iSpace fails third launch of the solid-fueled Hyperbola-1 rocket
Deep Blue Aerospace completes first hop, Expace completes assembly of Kuaizhou 1A and 11

View Details

1) iSpace's asymmetrical Hyperbola-3A medium-lift rocket

2) First 5G network and LEO broadband satellite integration test performed in Jinan and Beijing

3) Mystery around the YF-90 (Long March 9) engine & new round of funding for Space Pioneer

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

China officially kicks off the construction of the country's first space-based solar power industry base in Chongqing
Chinese Earth observation data analytics startups participate in Henan disaster relief effort after the recent floods
A new series of Yaogan satellites launched onboard a Long March 2C, with Tianqi-15 as a secondary payload.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

China Launches Mysterious Suborbital Spaceplane
First Lunar Samples Handed Out to Research Institutes
Static Fire Test of Deep Blue Aerospace's Nebula-M
Tencent Begins Space Program Focused on Astronomy
(note: for Jean's astrophotography Instagram : jeanhdeville)
Hainan Province Publishes “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Hainan High-tech Industries”, with Strong Emphasis on Space

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time.
Don’t forget to follow us on our website, YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).

This week, we discuss:

China’s 1st EVA with Tianhe (and 2nd ever Chinese EVA)
A Plethora of launches in a Single Week
Guangzhou & Tianjin Add Satellite Internet to their Development Plans

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up!

View Details

1) China's Zhurong Mars Rover Sends Back Additional Footage

2) LandSpace Completes the First Phase of the Its Small and Medium Rocket Factory in Jiaxing
(and article by GoTaikonauts! : https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3787/1)

3) Deep Blue Aerospace Prepares Static Fire Test for the Nebula M Demonstrator

4) Multiple Satellites Launched On-Board Long March 2D

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in the DFH Newsletter (getrevue.co/profile/dongfanghour).

This week, we discuss:

Massive Design Changes for China’s Super Heavy Rocket the Long March 9 (Long Lehao Presentation at the University of Hong-Kong)
Assorted Updates on China SatNet
Satellite Industry Fund of 50B RMB to be Set Up in Shenzhen

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! This week, we will only cover two stories in more detail, because they are both pretty beastly stories. A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in the DFH Newsletter (getrevue.co/profile/dongfanghour)!

The topics of the week are:

Shenzhou-12 launched on-board a Long March 2F, and successfully docks with the Tianhe Core Module
China and Russia announce (relatively) detailed roadmap for the ILRS (a.k.a. International Lunar Research Station)

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 7 - 13 June:

iSpace unveils details on the Hyperbola-3, which is officially validated and moved to the R&D phase
Emergence Dongfang Space (“Ospace”), yet another launch company
Additional Pictures from Tianwen-1 (orbiter shot of the lander)
Shenzhen Publishes Support for Satellite Manufacturing & Long March 2D Launch
CAS Xi’an to Launch Xiamen-1 Satellite
China Announces a MEO Broadband Constellation

Do remember to check out also our weekly newsletter which does broader coverage, going over pieces of news that we don't have time to discuss in the weekly podcast (https://www.dongfanghour.com/).
Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up!

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Below are the news updates from the week of 31 May - 6 June:

Launch of Fengyun-4B Meteorology Satellite
Space Pioneer completes a full system hot test of Tianhuo-11 engine
CAS Space Begins R&D on the ZK-2 Medium Lift Solid-Fueled Launch Vehicle
More details unveiled on the Tianzhou-2 spacecraft’s cargo

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 24 - 30 May:

1) Launch of Tianzhou-2 Cargo Mission

2) China’s Efforts to ensure a successful deployment of Zhurong on the Martian ground

3) Euroconsult Webinar Takeaways

Do remember to check out also our weekly newsletter which does broader coverage, going over pieces of news that we don't have time to discuss in the weekly podcast (https://www.dongfanghour.com/).

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, please find below the news update from the week of 17 - 23 May:

1) Another Fruitful Week for China’s Space Exploration Program

2) Completion of first batch of tests for the Tianhe Module

3) SASTIND Publishes New Regulations on Smallsat Manufacturing

4) Opinion Piece by Galaxy Space’s Xu Ming on China SatNet

Do remember to check out our weekly newsletter which does a broader coverage, going over pieces of news that we don't have time to discuss in the weekly podcast.

Thank you for your kind attention, we look forward to seeing you next time. Also, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source. And please give us a thumbs-up !

-----------------------

Credits for images/visuals: CNSA, CAST, NASA JPL, Thomas Appéré

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 10 - 16 May:

1) Chinese Tianwen-1 Mars Missions attempts Atmospheric Entry and Landing of the Zhurong Rover
2) Chinese Launch Company Galactic Energy signs Collaboration Agreement with China Huateng Group to Develop International Launch Opportunities
3) iSpace Completes a Test of its Single-Layer Common Bulkhead Fuel Tank
4) CGWIC to open an office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to promote BeiDou Adoption

For a more in-depth coverage of weekly China space news, please subscribe to our new newsletter: http://getrevue.co/profile/dongfanghour

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time! Until then, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 3 - 9 May.

1) China’s Long March 5B first stage re-enters Earth’s atmosphere and (seemingly) lands in the Indian Ocean

10 days or so ago, China launched a Long March 5B rocket to put into orbit the core module of the Chinese Space Station. As mentioned last week, this rocket is a beast: it weighs over 800t at lift-off, can put up to 25t of payload into LEO, and is comparable to some of the largest operational rockets at the moment.

Now as there was no upper stage, the core stage delivered the Tianhe module directly to orbit, and then enters successive decaying orbits before re-entering the atmosphere. In the case of this launch, the Long March 5B splashed down in the Indian Ocean, without creating any damage.

2) JZYJ Completes Hot Test of Whole Engine

Launch startup JZYJ announced on Thursday 6 May that they had conducted a hot fire test of the fully-assembled Longyun engine. The Longyun engine is a 80t thrust gas generator cycle engine which burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen, and one of the two engines designed by China launch startup Jiuzhou Yunjian, the other one being the Lingyun engine which is a 10t thrust methalox engine (and which was the first engine they developed). This is one of the first test firings of the Longyun engine, with likely many more to come to test different levels of thrust and restarting the rocket engine multiple times, two key features for any VTVL reusable rocket.

3) CASSPACE announces B+ Funding Round

On 6 May CASSPACE announced a ~200M B+ round of funding. The announcement also noted that they have raised around RMB 600M in the past year from CAS, Yuexiu Capital, Zhongxin, Hunan Aviation and Aerospace Fund (湖南航空航天基金), etc. The article mentions that CASSPACE will have their first launch in H2 2021 of a solid-fueled rocket, and that their rocket is part of the CAS’s 13th Five-Year Plan Space Science and Technology Projects. The rocket will have a payload to SSO of 1.5 tons, and has already completed a variety of tests.

A lot of money being put into CASSPACE recently, and indeed, this is not the only second-tier/second-generation launch company to be having a big year. 2021 has seen Tianbing Aerospace and JZYJ also raise more money while reaching various technological milestones, while also seeing new entrants such as “Rocket Group” of Huzhou (火箭派).

4) OneSpace “close to” raising a new round of funding for its Linglong solid and liquid fueled rockets, plans to IPO in 2022

We heard over the past week in the Chinese media that OneSpace was close to raising new round of funding. This seems to confirm the comeback of the rocket company, which was rumored to be in dire straits after failing the orbital launch attempt of its OSM solid-fueled rocket.

As reported in the DFH episode of Feb 1-7, OneSpace had successfully raised a round of funding in September 2020, and successfully performed a suborbital launch of an OS-X (6B) rocket in February 2021. The fact that they may be able to raise another round of funding a mere 7-8 months after the previous round shows the renewed attractiveness of the company.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time! Until then, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 26 April - 2 May.

1) Chinese Space Station: launch of the core Module Tianhe on-board Launch March 5B

On April 29 2021, China successfully sent the first module of the Chinese Space Station into orbit. The module was a 22.5-ton core module called Tianhe (天和, or “heavenly peace”). It was launched aboard a Long March 5B.

Tianhe is rightfully named the core module: it will be the centerpiece of the station which will host living quarters for the taikonauts, a bathroom, a kitchen, it will also be the main control unit (attitude, trajectory control), handles the fuel, power and air management systems. It is designed to host 3 taikonauts, and can hold up to 6 taikonauts during rotations. The Tianhe module will be joined next year by the Mengtian and Wentian experimental modules.
In 2024, the Chinese space station will also be joined by a space telescope called Xuntian, which will not be physically connected to the station but will evolve in the vicinity, and docking only for maintenance purposes.

2) Creation of a New Space SoE China SatNet

Major news update on Thursday 29 April which first came in the form of a press release from SASAC. The press release announced the creation of a China Satellite Networks Group Company, potentially SatNet for short, and puts that company under the direct administration of SASAC. SatNet is tasked with deploying and operating China’s LEO broadband constellation, widely speculated to be GuoWang.

The creation of a SatNet company at this level of the SOE hierarchy is hugely significant. SatNet is, at least in theory, at the same level in the hierarchy as CASC, CASIC, and the big 3 telcos (all of which are also directly controlled by SASAC). If we compare this to the previous arrangement, you had China’s biggest broadband project being done by CASC (Hongyan), and another by CASIC (Hongyun), with both projects involving subsidiary companies with multiple shareholders (for example, Hongyan’s operating company, MacroNet, has shareholders including CASC, China Telecom, and CETC). This would have meant, presumably, that projects like Hongyan would have mostly used the technology of CASC, Hongyun would have used technology for CASIC, and the innovation and competition would have occurred in the long-term, after we find out how these constellations work. On the other hand, the current situation with SatNet being at the same level as CASC, CASIC, the telcos, etc., means that it should, at least in theory, have a lot more freedom of choice in its sourcing options.

3) Long March 6 launches a Batch of 9 Smallsats into Orbit, many payloads of interest

On April 27th, China launched an impressive launch share mission on-board a Long March 6, putting 9 satellites into orbit. These satellites were:

Qilu-1 and Qilu-4. Qilu-1 is a SAR satellite. Qilu-4 on the other hand is a high-resolution panchromatic EO satellite .
Foshan-1 is a high res panchromatic EO satellite meant to be a technology verification platform of the Foshan-based Jihua Laboratory.
Zhong’an Guotong-1 satellite (also called Hangsheng-1)
Guodian Gaoke’s Tianqi-9 IoT satellite, developed by ASES Space.
Origin Space’s NEO-1: a technology verification satellite, meant to trial the capture of a small celestial body and various orbital maneuvers.
Golden Bauhinia-1-01 and -02 are two remote sensing satellites.
Taijing-2 satellite, manufactued by Minospace, will be used primarily for remote sensing, and is the third satellite launched to be based on the MN-50 platform.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 19 - 25 April.

1) The 6th China Space Day took place in Nanjing on Saturday April 24
Happy China Space Day everyone! This Saturday, China kicked off its 6th China Space Day, an annual celebration promoting China’s space heritage and future space programs. China Space Day is not actually one event, but actually hundreds of events all around the country, with many institutes, universities, and schools organizing space outreach events. This includes conferences, presentations, exhibitions, etc.

It’s also worth noting that among all the space events taking place in China, there is one big official event where all the space industry creme-de-la-creme get together, and which last two days. Every year CSD takes place in a different city, and this year it took place in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province. Speeches were delivered by Zhang Kejian (director of the CNSA), Wu Zhenglong (governor or Jiangsu), Han Liming (Secretary of the Nanjing Communist Party).

Finally, we saw an announcement of the name of China’s Mars rover, which is currently on-board the Tianwen-1 spacecraft in orbit around Mars, and which is supposed to land sometime in May. Among the ten names that were shortlisted by Chinese netizens, the name Zhurong (祝融) was officially announced by Wu Yanhua, the deputy director of CNSA. Zhurong is a god of fire in Chinese mythology.

2) ChinaSat Made Some Big Statements about China’s Constellation Plans
ChinaSat President Ge Yujin made some very interesting comments at an annual shareholders meeting for the company, as reported by Satellite World (卫星界) on Monday. The most interesting line was a reply to a question about Hongyan, namely a reporter pointing out that Hongyan was originally planned for completion in 2020, and asking for a status update.
Mr. Ge replied by pointing out that Hongyan was originally launched in 2018, and that it has since, along with CASIC’s Hongyun, come under national constellation system plan, with Hongyan understood to be undergoing major changes.

3) Spacety and Intane Optics complete China’s first private satellite-ground laser comms experiment
Two Chinese private companies, Spacety (a satellite manufacturer) and Intane Optics (optics subsystem manufacturer) announced in a press release on April 4th that they had achieved China’s first private laser satellite-ground comms. This satellite-ground laser comms experiment was done with the Beihangsat-1, a Spacety cubesat launched in November 2020 which was essentially a test satellite for space-based ADS-B, but it also carried the SG10-1 optical payload manufactured by Intane. The optical ground station was also provided by Intane, based in Nanjing.

4) Tianbing Aerospace Announces an Intelligent Rocket Manufacturing Base in Suzhou
Tianbing Aerospace, aka Space Pioneer, held a signing ceremony this week for an “Intelligent Rocket Manufacturing Base” in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou. The manufacturing base includes a total investment of RMB 4B, and aims at a capacity of 30 liquid rockets and 300 engines per year, with an estimated completion date of 2022. A few other interesting nuggets of info from the article: Tianbing Aerospace plans to launch its first Tianlong-1 liquid carrier rocket by the end of 2021, which, according to the exhibition shown at the signing ceremony, would make Tianbing the first medium-sized liquid-fueled rocket in China. Tianbing also claims to have pre-sold 10 rockets so far, and plans to begin batch manufacturing its rockets by next year. The company plans to IPO before the end of 2023.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfa

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 12 - 18 April.

1) CASIC Institute tests spaceplane propulsion technology
This week we saw an article published by the S&T Daily on a CASIC institute completing a precooling technology validation test, which is an essential technology for spaceplane propulsion.

According to the article, CASIC’s 3rd Academy’s 31st Institute, an institute specialized in aerospace propulsion, has been looking at precooling technology since June 2018. In past conferences, it has shown a technological roadmap where it shows the development of precooling technology over the early mid 2020s, and moving on to 15t and 30t combined-cycle engines which would power 2-stage spaceplane prototypes.

The latest test managed to cool air from 1000C down to -150C in 0.01 seconds. Undeniably a significant technical milestone for their “Yunlong” engine (which seems to be the name given to the engine).

2) Wu Weiren, chief-designer of China’s lunar exploration program, discusses China’s “Double One Hundred” goal
Wu Weiren, the chief-designer of China’s lunar exploration program, was interviewed this week by the official space industry media China Space News, in which he announced that China was aiming for a “Double One Hundred” goal (双百目标).
To understand this, there are several points to discuss:
Firstly, China likes anniversaries linked to its modern history, especially when its round numbers. Two of the big events are the founding of the CCP (1921), and the PRC (1949). There have been regularly large events to celebrate these dates, typically in 2019 a massive military parade on China’s National Day to celebrate the 70 years of the founding of the PRC.
2049 will be the 100th anniversary, and for that China is planning to send scientific probes in what is considered the boundaries of the heliosphere, 100 AU away from the Earth. And 100 AU on the 100th anniversary: thus the “double one hundred”.

3) A Report on China’s Aerospace Manufacturing Capabilities
This Friday, we saw SCMP publish an article about China’s aviation manufacturing capabilities, with the title telling you everything you need to know--”China’s Aviation Capabilities stuck at ‘low-end’ as military-civil fusion weighs on innovation”.

Quite a lot to unpack from this article. First, the SCMP article quotes a report written by the Development Research Center of Shanghai and published on ThePaper.cn, a website owned by the Shanghai Government. I had a decent dig through ThePaper.cn and could not find the report, however it is a massive website that publishes a prodigious amount of news, so it’s possible I simply could not find it.

Relying therefore on the SCMP summary, the report was apparently very frank about China’s weaknesses in the aviation and aerospace sectors. In particular, the report cited specific key technologies, such as engines, airborne equipment, and new composite materials. The report also cites China’s airworthiness certification abilities as being weak, and “cannot be fully recognized internationally in the short-term”.

The report brings up a handful of issues that we have highlighted in previous episodes of the Dongfang Hour. This includes emphasis on military-civil fusion, an overly large influence of SOEs on the development of innovation-driven sectors, and an “incomplete distribution mechanism” of shared risks and benefits.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. We look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 5 - 11 April.

1）TCL: A New Tech Player in the Chinese Space Industry?
This week, we have seen signs hinting that TCL, a Chinese consumer electronics giant, is preparing to invest in the space industry.
Last week, they created a company named Moxing Semiconductors, based in Guangzhou, and which would likely focus on space industry integrated circuits. Looking up information on their incorporation in a corporate database, the scope of business includes "GNSS enhancement systems", "satellite remote sensing systems", "integrated satellite applications tech".
This is alongside things like "IC design & manufacturing."

2) A Few More Details Revealed on China’s Commercial Launch Site
This week, Zhejiang Province released its 14th Five-Year Plan. Included in the plan was a call to build a commercial spaceport, in Xiangshan, Ningbo, with a total investment of RMB 20B, of which RMB 12B would be invested during the 2021-2025 period. A few things to unpack:

First, it is still not 100% clear that the Ningbo Commercial Spaceport is the commercial spaceport referred to in China’s national Five-Year Plan, but the inclusion in the Zhejiang Province FYP seems to make this more likely. The scale of the prospective launch site is impressive, with plans for up to 100 launches per year and economic activity of RMB 100B. The launch site would be 67 sq km, of which 35 would be devoted to launch, and 32 would be devoted to an industrial area supporting the launch site.

Second, the location of Ningbo, with a massive port (the world’s 4th busiest by container traffic in 2019), and a long coastline, are beneficial for rocket launches. The port could conceivably make shipping rockets and related equipment to Ningbo via sea simpler, and the seaside location allows for rockets to be launched over the ocean as opposed to over land.

3) New (Pre-A) round of funding of 100M RMB from Aerospace Propulsion
Chinese commercial startup Aerospace Propulsion (宇航推进) raised 100 million RMB, (approx. 15 million USD) in a new round a funding, with the lead (and unique?) investor being Weifang Hangdong Aerospace Investment Corporation (潍坊航动空天投资).

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Welcome to episode 8 of the Dongfang Hour!

The past several months have seen a significant undertaking by the Secure World Foundation (SWF) and Caelus Foundation to help further bridge the gap between China and the US in the space sector, this being the report Lost Without Translation: Identifying Gaps in U.S. Perceptions of the Chinese Commercial Space Sector. The report was an eye-opening one, the first of its kind, interviewing a variety of stakeholders from the US space ecosystem about their perceptions of China and its space ecosystem. The report was authored by people who had experienced the Chinese space sector firsthand. With the authoring organizations also both being non-profits, the report provides a balanced and fair perspective on the current situation, with limited ulterior motives beyond trying to continue the peaceful and sustainable development of the commercial space sector

On the Dongfang Hour, we got the chance to sit down with two of the report’s authors, Ian Christiansen of the SWF and Rob Ronci of the Caelus Foundation, to get some deeper perspectives on the report and their research more generally. During our hour-long conversation, we discussed report findings, areas for further research, and even a little bit of rampant speculation. Without wanting to give away too many details, here are some high-level takeaways from our conversation with SWF and Caelus:

Information asymmetry
Put simply, the Chinese space industry is better-informed about the ongoings of the US than vice versa, by a fair margin. A lot of factors play into this--language barrier (a lot more Chinese people speak English than vice versa), cultural barrier (a lot more Chinese people have spent many years in the United States/the west than vice versa), and also probably human resources (it is relatively less expensive to hire lots of Chinese people to translate and publish information about western activities than vice versa). There is also clearly a large element of “the US is leading in space”, and therefore of course everyone covers US companies. The same is very likely true of Europe and the US--that is, Europeans are better-informed of American space activities than vice-versa, all else equal.
Competition is not the same in all sectors
Namely, despite the fact that there are approximately 25 Chinese commercial launch companies, the biggest competition today is in the geospatial imaging sector. With China having launched dozens of state-owned EO satellites (Gaofen) over the past several years, and with commercial companies such as CGSTL having launched a couple dozen smaller, but still significant satellites in the past 2-3 years, the competition appears to be coming from multiple sources.
There is willingness, and indeed encouragement, by US companies to compete with Chinese companies, but under well-defined terms
Whether well-defined terms means “US-led trading systems like the WTO” is not entirely clear, but at any rate, there is the belief on the US side that if this is a “fair fight”, the US companies stand a good chance of out-competing the Chinese companies, at least in some dimensions. There is probably some truth to this--we feel comfortable saying that the US economic system is, all else equal, more conducive to that oft-chided term “disruptive innovation”, simply because the incentive structures are more open and allow for more experimentation with less government interference.

Overall, a great interview full of insightful points from our two guests. Moving forward, it seems unlikely that the US-China situation will improve markedly in the short term.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 29 March - 4 April.

1) Significant week from Chinese commercial launch companies
This week saw a lot of updates from Chinese launch companies, confirming that 2021 is going to be a landmark year in Chinese space.
First and foremost, we saw Landspace, one of China’s leading commercial launch companies, test its TQ-11 methalox engine for 4000s, its longest run so far (more than 1 hour!). This follows a batch of tests which included: simulating different regimes of flight, mixing ratios, autogenous pressurization & thrust vectoring.
iSpace, a Landspace competitor and also one of the leading private launch companies, tested its Jiaodian-1 liquid methalox engine during a 500s test, throttling the engine significantly (50%-100%) to simulate vertical take-off vertical landing.
JZJY similarly did a first hot fire engine test for their Longyun engine, which the 80t methalox 1st stage rocket engine developed by the company, and aims to be reusable multiple times.
CAS Space trialed a small 23kg VTVL prototype for future sea-based launch and landing. The test was mostly about testing the flight control characteristics: stability, robustness, horizontal and vertical movements.

2) TV Report from Hubei News on Wuhan space projects, and exclusive takeaways for Xingyun and Expace
The report refers to the heavy investment made by Expace, CASIC’s commercial launch spin-off, in building a digitalized industrial plant for batch-manufacturing Kuaizhou rockets, with cool shoots of 4 Kuaizhou rockets being assembled. The production rate of the factory is designed for 20 Kuaizhou rockets a year.
Perhaps more interesting (while slightly bizarre), the report mentions Expace’s liquid-fueled rockets, and notably that the “new digital facilities, which will enter service in the second half of 2021, will enhance Expace’s R&D capabilities for liquid-fueled rockets” (!).

On Xingyun, CASIC’s commercial narrowband constellation, some interesting updates came up as well in the report. Notably:
Xingyun VP Zhang Yong confirmed that a next batch of 6 Xingyun-3 satellites would be sent into orbit before the end of the year, on-board a Kuaizhou-11 rocket. This actually may represent a slight slip in the timeline previously announced at CCAF and in other conferences in 2020, where it was said that LeoBit, the operator of Xingyun, would launch 2x6 satellites into orbit.
Interestingly, the satellites are called Xingyun-3, meaning they are a 3rd generation of Xingyun satellites. Compared to the previous generation Xingyun-2 (2 satellites sent into space on-board a KZ-1A LV in 2020), the Xingyun-3 have “very significant technological upgrades”.

3) Geely plans group-level space headquarters in Nansha, Guangzhou
Geely announced a couple days ago it would establish space activities in the southern city of Guangzhou, in Nansha district.
First of all, this is big. Geely is not just "setting up some space subsidiary": this is Geely, a hundred-billion RMB revenue group, establishing its entire commercial space division headquarters in Guangzhou Nansha (将商业航天总部布局广州南沙).
The new entity, called Shikong Tansuo, would operate all Geely space subsidiaries: Geespace, Shanghe Aerospace, Xingkong Zhilian, and also interestingly SpaceOK (!).

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. We look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 22-28 March.

1) An ambitious deployment plan laid out by CGSTL
CGSTL, China’s leading commercial EO company which operates the Jilin-1 constellation (and manufactures its satellite in-house), announced that they would complete their 138-satellite Jilin-1 constellation during the 14th Five Year Plan, which started this year (2021-2025). This comes in the context of the recent closing of the two-sessions, with much information being revealed notably on the space roadmap for the coming 5 years.

Perhaps more interestingly, CGSTL also announced that they would have 60 Jilin-1 satellites in orbit by the end of the year, which is a very ambitious deployment schedule considering that they currently have 25 Jilin satellites in orbit (basically it would be a +150% increase in the number of satellites). Yet this is not necessarily surprising has CGSTL has been one of the lead commercial companies in China, raising significant amounts of money (2.46B RMB in 2020), and has developed increasingly impressive satellites, including the impressive 1.25t KF-01 satellite launched in Jan. 2020. They now “have the money and the technology”, and are entering a batch production and deployment phase, according to the ChinaNews outlet in Sept 2020.

2) Media report on the quality control at Xingyun
Media report originally from China Space News (中国航天报) about CASIC’s narrowband constellation project Xingyun, with the article focusing on quality control, but revealing some insights on company structure and philosophy.

Xiang Bin, Deputy GM of Xingyun Company, is interviewed during the media piece, where he discussed standardization of the Xingyun satellite platform and the quality considerations therein. Xiang noted that the quality considerations for commercial space are, in his opinion, even higher than for traditional space in some ways, because commercial space moves much faster and leapfrogs some steps in the development process. The article also pointed out that Xingyun was aiming to reduce costs mainly through design costs, highlighting an interesting difference in philosophy--namely that in traditional space, there is a lot of effort devoted to designing to the standard/specification, whereas in commercial space, they design from scratch, basically they do not try to reach a specification, they try to do things as simply as possible from the beginning of the process.

3) Beijing Daxing Aerospace Base
The Beijing municipality’s Aerospace Department director Ai Bin visited an area in Daxing district, where he confirmed that the municipality was planning to build an aerospace base. An aerospace base basically means building and providing facilities to space startups, and concentrating similar companies in one place, sometimes providing investment, incubation, etc.

4) Haisi-1 Ever Given Shot
This week saw the most captivating shipping industry news in years, with the MV Ever Given, operated by Evergreen Marine, ran aground in the Suez Canal in Egypt. As of 28 March, the ship is still stuck, blocking traffic in one of the world’s busiest canals.

5) 2 New Tianwen-1 Mars Shots
CNSA released 2 new images of Mars, shot by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft’s medium-resolution camera. The shot was taken at approx. 11 000 km distance from the surface. These two shots show the northern and southern hemispheres.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. We look forward to seeing you next time!

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 15 - 21 March.

1) Some news from Hangsheng Satellite, including an upcoming launch next month
The Changsha Evening News published an interesting update on Changsha-based satellite company Hangsheng Satellite. The company was founded as early as 2015. The company is focused on making small satellites as well as satellite subsystems. It seems that the actual smallsat manufacturing business unit is picking up momentum. In the Changsha Evening News report, the journalist visited Hangsheng’s facilities where final testing procedures were being done on Hangsheng-1, a 37 kg CubeSat which is scheduled for launch next month according to the report. The satellite will carry multiple scientific and technical experimental payloads, including a remote sensing payload.

2) Starwin Completes Testing of Ka-band Phased Array Antenna
Starwin, one of the more innovative Chinese ground terminal manufacturers, announced a test in partnership with ChinaSat for a Ka-band electronically-steered phased-array antenna. This comes about a week after the company released a promo for its Ku/Ka-band electronically-steered phased array antenna.

China’s satcom market has historically lagged behind the rest of the world technologically, to some extent. This has been for two reasons, namely 1) excellent terrestrial infrastructure has limited the need for lots of satellite capacity, and 2) ChinaSat has been in a pretty comfortable position as the market monopolist, or at best duopolist. This is not necessarily limited to China and ChinaSat--operators like JSAT (Japan) and KTSAT (South Korea) have been comparatively slow in procuring HTS for similar reasons. But digressing, the Chinese market has been slow to roll out HTS, but this is changing, with ChinaSat having launched its first HTS in 2016 (ChinaSat-16), and a second in 2019 that failed (ChinaSat-18). We now have Apstar-6D, a large HTS operated by Mainland Chinese operator APT Mobile Satcom, and we have several HTS orders for ChinaSat.

3) CASICloud announces an RMB 2.63 billion round of funding
CASIC’s industrial internet subsidiary CASICloud, announced that it has raised 2.63 billion RMB in a new round of funding on March 18.
Firstly, it’s worth noting that CASICloud is one of the large scale commercial initiatives of CASIC in 2015, and CASIC being a very traditional SoE who’s historical business is the defence sector. Why enter the cloud and industrial internet business, when there are huge domestic players such as Tencent Cloud or AliCloud already? CASIC’s launch of CASICloud coincides with the period when the 10-year Made in China 2025 plan was unveiled, and which aims among other things at making China a leader in 10 target industries. CASICloud can be seen as an implementation of the MIC2025 policy. CASICloud competitors’ Tencent Cloud and AliCloud being privately owned companies, it may seem to make sense to also have an SoE play a role in a business that is considered strategic by the central government.
Furthermore, while CASICloud most definitely seems to have a Cloud Infrastructure component to it, it seems that the main focus of the company is the industrial software layer that is built on topic of that. In this regard, CASICloud is probably more comparable to Siemens (Mindsphere) or GE (Predix).

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. We look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 8 - 14 March.

1) A new dedicated spaceport for commercial launch companies?
With China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) being finalized in the coming days/weeks, we noticed an announcement on Saturday 13 March from the Science and Technology Daily (科技日报), the official newspaper of the Ministry of Science & Technology. Notably: 1) Build an integrated communications, EO, satnav space system with global coverage, and 2) build a commercial launch center.

The first point--building an integrated communications, EO, and satnav space system with global coverage, is not particularly new or surprising. China has been talking about the Belt and Road Spatial Information Corridor, and about the idea of “Integration of Comms,EO, and Satnav” (通导遥一体化) for several years.

The second point is more surprising. China’s announcement to build a commercial launch site is not something that has been as widely discussed as the above-mentioned integrated network. To now, China’s four launch sites remain controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, and while commercial launch companies have been able to launch from Jiuquan, it is believed to involve some rather prickly regulatory hurdles.

2) What role will commercial companies play in China’s future satellite internet?
Every year in China, the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature, holds a session, generally in early Spring (with the exception of 2020 due to covid19). At the same time, China’s People’s Political Consultation Conference is held, bringing together delegations from the CCP but also business people, the military, and academics. It acts as an important advisory platform bringing multiple facets of China’s society and economy into one place. Both sessions represent a moment where past policies are reviewed and future policies discussed. A great place to listen and get hints of what is coming next in terms of space policy.

3) China successfully launches Long March 7A Y2 one year after the rocket’s maiden launch (and failure)
China successfully launched for the first time the Long March 7A rocket on Thursday March 11th, putting a satellite named Shiyan-9 into GTO. This is a significant event for several reasons. First of all, this is a nice addition to the Chinese Long March rocket family. The current workhorse for China’s GEO launches is the old LM-3 rockets, in service since the 1990s. This rocket uses extremely toxic hypergolic fuels, a issue for operations on the ground but also post-flight as the boosters come crashing back down on Chinese territory.
Perhaps more importantly, LM7A fills in a gap within China’s GEO launch capabilities. LM3 in its heaviest version (LM3B/E with enhanced boosters and core stage) is only able to put 5.5 tons into GEO, while LM7A is able to put 7t. LM 7A fills a gap between LM3 and the much larger (although same height) LM5, which puts 14t in GTO.

4) Galactic Energy Appears at Jianyang Investment Conference
Chinese commercial launch company Galactic Energy appeared at an investment conference held in Jianyang, near Chengdu, on 10 March. The article, posted on Galactic Energy’s official WeChat account, notes that the company’s Ceres-1 intelligent manufacturing base in Jianyang is nearing completion, with the base expected to come online in May of this year.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 1 - 7 March.

1) Qiansheng Exploration (QS-T) Announces RMB 100M+ Series A Round
Chinese satellite manufacturer Qiansheng Exploration announced a Series A funding round of more than RMB 100 million on Friday 5 March, with the funding expected to go towards strengthening the company’s satellite manufacturing and geospatial information services capabilities. The round was led by the Fuzhou (Jiangxi) High-Tech Emerging Industry Development Fund, which is apparently a part of the Fuzhou National High-Tech Industrial Zone. Qiansheng Exploration had previously had pretty close relations with the Zhongguancun area of Beijing. While we do not necessarily have reason to believe this has changed, the funding round being led by Fuzhou likely implies that Qiansheng will relocate some activity to the city as a form of economic development.

2) Jielong-3 to make its maiden launch in 2022
CALT’s commercial subsidiary China Rocket announced on March 3rd that the Jielong-3 small lift solid-fueled launch vehicle would make its maiden launch in 2022. Jielong-3 is the 3rd and heaviest rocket of the Jielong rocket series, putting 1.5 tons into LEO. The other two are two lighter lift launch vehicles capable of putting 200 kg and 500 kg into LEO, with Jielong-1 having succeeded its first orbital launch in August 2019.
(AFAIK) the Jielong 2, 3 rockets were announced at a China Rocket event in October 2019; back in the days the company had already set a foot in the realm of small lift commercial launch vehicles with the Jielong-1, and the follow-up Jielong series showed CALT/China Rocket’s ambition to consolidate its presence in launch and compete with the likes of Expace as well as other commercial launch companies. The payload capacities indeed compete directly with a lot of the commercial launch companies discussed in previous episodes.

3) An interesting piece by the Beijing Daily on Beijing’s commercial space ecosystem
The Beijing Daily published an interesting article on March 1st on the capital’s commercial space ecosystem.

The article discussed how Beijing seems to have an interesting geographic divide between the North (attracting satellite manufacturing startups) and the South (focused on rockets). This has given the capital the nickname in Chinese of “南箭北星”, as we may have mentioned in previous episodes. And interestingly, according to the Beijing Daily article, this is actually due to the fact that CALT has a strong presence in the south and with who Chinese startups collaborate; and similarly in the Northern suburbs is CAST facilities, of significant interest for satellite manufacturing companies.

Another noteworthy point of the article is the support that the Beijing municipal government provides its commercial space ecosystem, and this can be generalized to many other provincial capitals. This can be in terms of infrastructure/facilities, with science & tech parks putting preferential policies for tech-heavy companies. The article also mentions “building commercial aerospace industry bases” in Beijing’s most southern district Daxing.
Last but not least, the support is also financial. The article mentions employing municipal-level industry funds to support commercial space companies, and financial mechanisms to limit insurance premiums for launch.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. Thanks for watching!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 22 - 28 Feb.

1) Xi Jinping and very high level delegation visits Chang’e 5 expo at the Great Hall of the People
On February 22nd, Xi Jinping visited an exhibition on the Chinese lunar mission Chang’e 5, which successfully completed its sample return mission earlier this year. President Xi toured the exhibition, made a speech, and there was a group picture.

While this may seem like an ordinary event, there are several noteworthy points the unpack here:
- First and foremost, it’s been a while since Xi Jinping has held a public event in support of the space industry. The last one was 2 years ago for Chang’e 4, and I believe before that it was in 2016 when XJP met up with the crew of Shenzhou 11.
- The delegation that accompanied President Xi was also high profile: present were the entire standing committee of the Politburo, in other words the 6 most powerful people in China after Xi Jinping. This included Premier Li Keqiang.
- Lastly, there were also former leading chief designers and leaders that had played a key role in the space industry: Sun Jiadong and Luan Enjie. Put together, it was a big part of the space team and Chinese leadership put together in one room (as seen in picture in video).

2) CNSA officially validates the Long March 9 in the Chinese space program
Wu Yanhua, the deputy director of CNSA, stated that the development of the Long March 9 had been officially confirmed, with its main objective being crewed missions to the Moon and to Mars.
LM9 is China’s hypothetical super heavy rocket, and had loosely been in the pipeline for many many years, the first hints going back all the way to 2010. And what China has done mostly since then is to explore multiple configurations for the rocket. At first China considered a configuration with a hydrolox first stage with 4 solid fueled side boosters, and a hydrolox second stage. But rapidly the Chinese design teams swapped the solid fueled side boosters and the hydrolox first stage for kerolox engines.
It would be available in 3 configurations, LM9 (140t LEO), LM9A (100t LEO) and LM9B (50t LEO).

3) Takeaways from Future Space’s 2020 Investment Report
A comprehensive report published by Chinese space industry think-tank and event planner FutureSpace. A few main takeaways:
Similar to data published by Euroconsult, we saw 2020 actually surpass 2019 in Chinese space sector funding, despite a significant drop in the number of funding rounds. In short: fewer, bigger rounds, and consequently, some degree of concentration of funds among the top several startups in their respective verticals.
We also saw a change in the type of funding. In 2020, we only saw RMB 350 million going into seed rounds, angel rounds, or Pre-A rounds. This 350 million was out of a total space industry funding of RMB 9 billion in 2020, according to the report. So, very early-stage rounds represented ~4% of total funding for Chinese space companies in 2020.
We also saw “strategic investment” rounds occupy a large share of total funding, at more than half. This is not particularly surprising given that “strategic investment” rounds often involve large investors and more mature companies. That said, these types of rounds tend not to be as specific about the amount of funding raised, which probably means 1) there is some degree of estimation in FA’s figures for strategic investment rounds, and that 2) this may be a big piece of the delta between FA and EC’s figures.

Thanks for watching! And don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 15 - 21 Feb.

1) Russia and China close to signing an MoU on Lunar ExplorationAccording to Andrew Jones of Space News, Russia and China are close to signing an MoU on the “International Lunar Research Station” project (ILRS), a concept revealed by China in 2016.

China has a very strong lunar exploration program known as the China Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP). The program was initiated by the orbiter Chang’e 1 in 2007, followed by Chang’e-2 (another orbiter), two lander/rover missions (Chang’e 3 and 4), and a sample/retrieve mission (Chang’e) 5 completed at the beginning of this year. CLEP also plans a second sample return mission in 2023 with Chang’e 6; little is known of the Chang’e 7 and 8 missions, which will focus on critical technologies such as ISRU.

For follow-up missions, which would put us well into 2030, China has mentioned long-term robotic missions, as well as possibly crewed missions to the southern pole. It has been developing a super heavy launch vehicle the Long March 9, which is planned for maiden flight in the early 2030s. It has also tested in 2020 its next-generation crewed spacecraft.

2) Release of a new report on the Chinese space sectorEarlier this week, we saw the release of a new report from the Secure World Foundation and the Caelus Foundation, “Lost Without Translation”. The report was built on research efforts by the SWF and Caelus to understand perceptions of the US/China relationship, specifically in the context of commercial space.

Primarily reporting from a US perspective, the report brings up some important findings. Some takeaways include:

Information asymmetry. There is a lot more information available for Chinese actors about the activities of their US counterparts than vice versa. Put another way, today, the US space industry is largely in the dark about China’s activities, and they seem to acknowledge this.
Desire by US companies and other actors to engage with their Chinese counterparts, but to do so in ways that are well-defined, in areas that allow for protection of IP, settlement of conflicts in neutral areas, and generally a “rule-based” system for space transactions.
Many American respondents (nearly half) were “not sure” about the question of whether there are Chinese commercial space companies, with roughly ¼ each answering definitively yes or no.

3) Announcement by Geely about their satellite factory getting the “green light”Almost exactly 1 year ago, Geely announced its plans for a constellation of enhanced navigation satellites, as part of Li’s larger vision to transform Geely from an auto manufacturer into an autonomous mobility service provider. At the time, the company announced RMB 2 billion (US$325M) to be invested into the factory in Taizhou, with plans for manufacturing thousands of satellites for Geely’s planned constellation. While China’s state-owned broadband constellation plans are primarily aiming to provide broadband, Geely’s constellation aims to provide enhanced navigation and vehicle-to-vehicle communications. This is particularly interesting because it basically implies that the biggest customer that Geely has in mind for the constellation is….Geely.

Thanks for watching! And don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or your local podcast source.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 8 - 14 Feb.

1) Tianwen-1 inserts itself successfully into Martian orbit
China’s Mars exploration spacecraft successfully inserted itself into Martian orbit by firing its main thrust engine (3000N) during approx. 15 mins, lowering its velocity sufficiently to be “captured” by the red planet’s gravitational field. Tianwen-1 has inserted itself in a highly elliptical orbit with a periapsis of 400 km and an orbital plane inclination of 10°. While we are still in the early stages of the mission, this is a historical moment for China, as it’s the first time it has inserted a spacecraft in a orbit beyond the Earth orbit, becoming the 6th country to do so after the US, Russia, Europe, India, and the UAE.

2) Publication of the ESPI Report “New Space in Asia”, including DFH (and GT!) contribution for the China Part
Detailed report published earlier this week about the large and growing “New Space” sector in Asia. While our personal favorite would clearly be the Chinese market, the report provides a great deep-dive into a number of other regional space industries, with every chapter written by an expert of their respective market. The report is highly recommended as a primer for understanding several of the world’s fastest-growing space industries.

3) Happy New Year of the Ox! + Chinese New Year Art of Social Media
China this week has also officially entered the year of the ox, according to its traditional lunar calendar. One event that was worth noting during this period: the traditional Chinese New Year gala, which is watched by almost every household on the night of CNY (interestingly while the TV is generally on with 春晚, people aren’t generally watching it with too much attention). During this new year gala, the spotlight was given to Chinese space during 3 whole minutes, during which the presentator invited the Chief designers of some of China’s most ambitious projects. When you watch the video you think a little bit about how important a space country China is becoming. And by observing the way the space part of the Gala was set up (music, content, …), you realize how strong the Chinese pride is for their latest achievements.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 1 - 7 February.

1) iSpace Fails in the Second Launch of the Hyperbola-1
Chinese launch startup iSpace failed in the second launch of its Hyperbola-1 rocket earlier this week, with a Chinese language report reporting abnormalities in both the first and second stages in a launch on Monday 1 Feb. It was later pointed out that there had been apparently significant modifications to the Hyperbola-1 rocket between the first and second launch, which may have complicated the launch process. It may also have been an indication of the extent to which Chinese commercial space companies are by design nimble, needing to pivot often in order to increase their chances of survival. The launch failure is a setback for iSpace, and may create an opening for Landspace, or even Galactic Energy, to jump out in front as China’s most advanced commercial launch company. iSpace appears to still be a quite solid company, with an intact leadership team and a successful launch from 2019 under their belt. That said, the company has historically been less public about their activities than competitors such as Landspace or Expace, so it is hard to say how much trouble iSpace is or is not in following the launch failure.

2) Beijing Adds Satellite Internet to its Priorities for 2021
Actually from last week, we saw the Municipal People’s Congress of Beijing Municipality, where the city’s leaders discussed key tasks for the coming 1 year, as well as the coming 5-year plan period (2021-2025). This included many high-level targets, including 6% economic growth for the city in 2021, urban unemployment below 5%, and CPI of 3%. As reported by Chinese space industry think tank and event organizer FutureSpace, the Beijing Government’s document included emphasis on developing the digital economy, promoting high-quality development, and developing services that can be deployed across the Belt and Road. While admittedly nebulous, the inclusion of these several buzz phrases does reveal a fair amount about Beijing’s aspirations. The plans also mentioned two specific phrases related to satellite, namely developing a satellite internet industry, and accelerating development of high-end precision sensors for space/aerospace.

3) OneSpace Completes Successful Reentry Test Launch
Chinese launch startup OneSpace completed a test launch of its OSX-6B on 5 February. The launch took place from Northwest China, with the test flight lasting approximately 580 seconds, reaching an altitude of 300km. Noteworthily, the rocket was called the Chongqing Liangjiang Star, an homage to the Liangjiang New Area of Chongqing. Liangjiang is a major initiative by the Chongqing Municipal Government, with significant investment going into industrial parks and other related infrastructure in Liangjiang.

4) Tianwen-1 sends back its first image of Mars
We received this week the first image of Mars from Tianwen-1, a beautiful monochrome picture shot at 2.2 million km away from Mars, as the Chinese spacecraft enters its final approach. This is symbolic of Tianwen-1 entering the final phases of its trip to Mars as it gets ready to be “captured” by the Martian gravitational field. Tianwen-1 was launched on July 23 2020, in the Mars launch window of 2020 (which occurs every 26

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 25 - 31 January.

1) News of Geely’s satellite constellation (and Qingdao Shanghe Aerospace Technology)
According to media reports, the Qingdao SCO Demonstration Zone officially kicked off the Qingdao Aerospace Science & Tech New Industry Project, which is a huge construction project over a land area of over 20,000 m2 and will host the Qingdao Shanghe Aerospace Technology Company.

Qingdao Shanghe was founded in August 2020, and is 100% owned by Geespace, a subsidiary of Geely Group based in Zhejiang and that has invested massively in satellite manufacturing. Qingdao Shanghe was registered with an initial capital of 100 million RMB. This seems like a sign of Geely's determination regarding its comms/satnav constellation project in LEO, announced in 2020. While Geely's satellite manufacturing plans have been moving forward rapidly, there had been quite few updates on the constellation project itself.

2) Carbon fiber cryogenic tank for liquid oxygen (CALT)
Last week we saw CALT announce that it had successfully manufactured a 3.35m diameter carbon composite cryogenic tank for liquid oxygen. This is first in China for a tank with such a large diameter.

CALT’s article mentioned a decrease in mass of 30% compared to previous aluminium alloy tanks (1.7g/cm3 vs 2.8g/cm3). The academy also believes that cost can be reduced by 25% compared to previous tank models, and that manufacturing speed would increase compared to metal-based tanks. There will no doubt be further testing to ensure the technology is mature before integrating a Long March rocket.

3) Article from MacroPolo about Rising Stars in China’s Political Hierarchy
Great piece from MacroPolo this week about the rising stars in the Communist Party apparatus. Noteworthy for the space sector is the fact that several former CASC/CASIC/CNSA high-level people have gone into politics.

The article mentions Yuan Jiajun, a former VP of CASC who had completed his PhD at Beihang, worked on Lunar and Mars missions, and is now the Party Secretary of Zhejiang Province, one of China’s wealthiest. Also highlighted is Xu Dazhe, a former high-level manager at CASIC and the CNSA who has since become Governor, and now Party Secretary, of Hunan Province in central China.

4) HNA Group enters bankruptcy restructuring
HNA Group is a large privately-owned conglomerate based in Haikou (Hainan province), and until very recently, a Fortune 500 company. Its core activities are historically in aviation through its subsidiary HNA Aviation, which in turn handles over 14 airlines, including China’s fourth-largest airline Hainan Airlines.

HNA Group came under government scrutiny in 2017, and crumbling under the massive amount of debt it had created, began selling many of its assets. At the climax of the shopping spree in 2017, HNA Group was reported to have accumulated 1 trillion RMB of assets, 500 billion RMB of debt, and have ramifications in more than 2300 companies. This eventually led to the bankruptcy restructuring this week.

It’s hard to say how things will go for HNA Group further down the road. 2020 has not been kind to the company, with the coronavirus stifling the aviation business. Yet HNA Group is such a key company to Hainan province, in both economic & employment terms, that it is hard to see the local government letting the situation reach liquidation.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 18 - 24 January.

1) CASIC Announced Some New Details on their Satellite Factory
China Daily, among others, reported that CASIC’s satellite factory in Wuhan had completed construction, and that it would start manufacturing satellites in March. An impressive feat for anywhere, this is particularly impressive given that 1 year ago, Wuhan was in the very beginnings of the Coronavirus pandemic, and would be on lockdown for more than 1 month.

The factory was designed and built in 429 days, according to Zou Guangbao of CASIC Space Engineering Development Company, and will eventually manufacture 240 satellites per year. The article specifically mentions CASIC’s Hongyun constellation of broadband satellites, a somewhat surprising development given the widely-held belief that China will announce/is actively planning a larger broadband constellation. Plausibly, Hongyun could be one layer/shell of such a constellation.

2) Announcement of the (mysterious?) Tianxun IoT constellation
On January 21, the opening ceremony of the Jinyi Industry-City Integration zone took place in the subdistrict (“town”) of Luodian, which is in the Northern district of Baoshan in Shanghai.
Most interesting at this event was the launch of the Tianxun project, an IoT satellite constellation composed of 72 satellites, and which should be launched and completed over the next 3 years. The development and the launch of the first test satellite would take place in 2021. Beyond the space segment, the Jinyi Industry Zone is planning to host an ecosystem combining the space-based IoT with cloud computing, big data, as well as the design & product of satellites, ground terminals; aiming at both industry and B2C applications.

With the test and launch of the first satellite taking place this year, it is very likely that the Tianxun IoT project will rely on existing satellite manufacturing capabilities.

3) Jiuzhou Yunjian Announced a Round of Funding
Jiuzhou Yunjian announced a round of funding earlier this week, which is likely the first round of funding by a Chinese commercial space company in 2021. The company did not specify the amount of money in the funding round, but mentioned several investors, notably Zhongguancun Aerospace Startup Development Fund (lead investor), Yunhe Capital, Zhongguancun Development Seed Fund, and Ourui Capital. The involvement of 2x Zhongguancun Development funds is a clear indication of the degree of support being given by the city government towards space startups.

4) Chinese Mars Rover Naming Competition
On January 20th, China’s lunar and space exploration center announced that the name of China’s Mars rover on-board the Tianwen-1 spacecraft was open for a naming contest. Tianwen-1 is China’s first solo Mars exploration mission, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
The naming contest opened on January 20th, and gave netizens the choice between 10 names. These 10 names were based on an initial call for names that took place in the August of 2020 (during the period of the Mars launch window). A committee then selected the 10 best-suited names, which are up for vote.
The deadline is until February 28th, after which the jury collects the votes, deliberates, and reveals the name (at an undefined date, likely in March).

Thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 11 - 17 January.

1) iSpace Announces Plans for an IPO on the Star Board
iSpace announced plans to IPO on China’s STAR Board, or 科创板. The STAR Board is a Shanghai-based stock market focusing on early-stage, oftentimes higher-risk companies. China’s main stock indices in Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as other indices in Beijing, have rather stringent regulations for metrics such as profitability, which makes it hard for early-stage companies to list. The Chinese government has progressively become more open to early-stage companies taking more risk with larger amounts of money, and created the STAR Board to allow earlier-stage, oftentimes not profitable, or not revenue-generating companies to list. Other space companies have listed on the STAR Board, including PIEsat. The press release from the STAR Board News only specifies that CITIC Securities and Tianfeng Securities will advise the listing, and does not offer any additional information.

2) Several updates on CASC making progress on propulsion technology
CASC’s Academy of Aerospace Liquid Propulsion Technology (AALPT), completed a 500s hot fire test of the YF-77 heavy thrust hydrolox engines, used notably on the Long March 5. This was the 4th 500s test, in a series to study and improve the reliability of the engine. 500s is about 4 times the length the engine would normally run during an actual launch, before engine cut-off. It is worth noting that this is in the context of a critical year for Long March 5(B), which will launch the 3 modules of the Chinese space station in the coming months.
China has also been making progress with its next-generation, a 220t thrust liquid-fueled hydrolox engine. This massive engine would power the second stage of China’s future super-heavy rocket, the Long March 9. Compared to the current Chinese state-of-the-art hydrolox engine, the YF-77 which powers the Long March 5, the new generation Chinese engine has approx. 3 to 4 times the amount of thrust.
The largest Chinese solid engine was fired on December 30, in Xi’an. During the 130-second firing test, the engine reached a peak of 260t of thrust. The engine is developed by AASPT (CASC’s Academy of Aerospace Solid Propulsion Technology), also known as the 4th Academy, and based in Xi’an. The current engine breaks multiple records: largest thrust, diameter, and ignition time (in China).

3) US adds 9 Chinese companies to a blacklist, including COMAC and Air China Group
The US added on Jan. 15 a list of 9 Chinese companies to a DoD blacklist, which lists companies which have ties with the Chinese military. These include Chinese aircraft manufacturer COMAC, which carries China’s commercial aircraft projects such as the C919; as well as Air China Group (CNAH), the parent company of Air China, and also, interestingly, one of China’s leading consumer tech companies Xiaomi. This blacklist “merely” bans American individuals and companies from investing in the blacklisted companies, but does not have an impact on export of goods. Consequently, the impact on COMAC and Air China will be limited, as they remain to a very large extent Chinese state-owned companies. This is much less the case for Xiaomi, which is listed in the US and in Hong-Kong (and which stocks plunged after the announcement). US investors will have to divest in listed companies before November 11 2021.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

China has seen a boom in satellite manufacturing over the past 6-7 years, with the rise in the commercial space sector more broadly leading to more than 15 commercial satellite manufacturers of widely varying scale and sophistication. Many of these satellite manufacturers are hoping to address demand from China’s April 2020 inclusion of “Satellite Internet” into the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)’s list of “New Infrastructures”, with this demand likely to include a Chinese LEO broadband constellation of some >10,000 satellites.

While China’s biggest and most sophisticated satellite manufacturers remain state-owned CASC subsidiaries (CAST and SAST), several of the emergent commercial satellite manufacturers have reached, or will likely reach within 2021, the point of manufacturing dozens to ~100 satellites per year of ~50-100kg. Of the commercial satellite manufacturers, the most advanced are likely Mino Space, Commsat, Spacety, and Galaxy Space, with the possible inclusion of Guodian Gaoke. While each of these companies has taken a somewhat different angle towards the satellite internet value chain, it is likely that none will deploy their own dedicated broadband constellation, and rather, each may find some business for dozens or hundreds of satellites as part of China’s future broadband constellation(s). In the case of Commsat, the company has pivoted towards dedicated satellite manufacturing and user terminals, with the company no longer planning its own constellation.

The Dongfang Hour was lucky enough to recently sit down with Dong Lu, Director of Strategic Development at Commsat. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, including discussion of:

Commsat and its development history, future development vision, and target market
China’s evolving satellite internet sector
Similarities and differences between China’s traditional space sector (largely state-owned enterprises) and commercial space companies
Similarities and differences between the Chinese and European space industries, and how this relationship has evolved over time

Some Key Takeaways

Commsat has a variety of activities, and they have these activities spread over a wide area. For example, the company has recently opened facilities in Yibin, Sichuan Province, and Tangshan, Hebei Province. Yibin was chosen due to its proximity to Chengdu, a major city in Southwest China that has a significant electronics industrial base and many excellent electronical engineering programs at local universities. The Yibin factory will focus on the electronical components of the satellite. Tangshan was chosen due to its proximity to Beijing, and will be focusing on developing the satellite busses. Both local governments have provided some incentives.

Dong Lu also provided some interest insights on the evolution of the relationship between China and Europe in the space sector. Having studied in Europe for his Master’s and Doctorate degree, Dong Lu noted that there has always been significant activity between China and Europe in the space sector, but that this has changed in recent years, with a broader variety of European companies coming to address the Chinese market, and with bigger projects being done by China with Europe as a smaller partner.

Another clear takeaway was the pride that Dong Lu showed in the growth of the Chinese space sector, and the evolution of the Chinese space program. As someone who graduated from undergrad in 2005, Dong Lu has seen China’s space sector exceed even his wildest expectations from 10 or 15 years ago, and the sense of pride and happiness was both justified and impressive to see.

Overall, an excellent discussion with one of the most interesting characters in the Chinese space sector. We found it highly insightful, and we hope that you do too! If you like it, feel free to share, like, or follow.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 4 - 10 January.

1) CASC announces plans for 40 launches in 2021
At an event on January 4th, CASC announced plans for 40 launches in 2021, which would represent a new high for the company. This figure does not include commercial launches (i.e. Expace and others), and thus if CASC were to hit 40 launches in 2021, China would likely be the world leader.

The company event on the first working day of the year highlighted several key themes for CASC (and the Chinese space industry more generally) in 2021, with this including phrases like batch manufacturing, enhanced product quality, and an acknowledgement that there is increasing pressure from commercialization of space, which requires CASC to make more efforts to control costs.

Overall, an interesting mix of messages here. Clearly 2021 is going to be a major year for CASC/the Chinese space program more generally, but there is indeed major pressure. Geopolitically, the US/China issues are seemingly here to stay, and American companies (SpaceX) are making progress at a rate that would be alarming from a Chinese policymaker perspective. At the same time, the Chinese macroeconomy is facing increasing stress due to declining exports and an increasingly large debt burden.

2) CMA announces a tender for a low-cost cargo spacecraft: a Chinese COTS/CRS program?
China’s manned spaceflight agency (CMA) released a statement on the 6th of January, calling for the diversification of the cargo supply mechanisms, and notably for the establishment of a “low-cost cargo transportation method”.

China has a cargo vessel named Tianzhou, which was derived of the Shenzhou crewed capsule and which will deliver cargo to the CSS 2-3 times a year. Tianzhou is a beast of a spacecraft, putting 6.5 tons of payload to the CSS (on par with a HTV or Dragon capsule, and significantly lower than a Cygnus or Progress spacecraft). This is probably why CMS is looking for more flexibility, with a lower cost, smaller payload capacity vehicle.
In the released request for proposal, the CMS stated that companies wanting to take part in the bid would have until February 28 2021 to submit a proposal.

3) China confirms the feasibility of space-ground quantum key distribution, in publication published in Nature
A number of research institutes & universities from China published on Jan. 7 a paper in Nature, confirming the feasibility of free space (satellite-based) quantum key distribution (QKD). QKD exploits the quantum states of photons and is able to detect any interception between the sender and the receiver, thus making QKD “unbreakable”.

South Korean satellite operator ktsat has mentioned QKD as a potential future business of the company, with the former CEO having been quoted multiple times in 2018 and 2019 on the subject. According to ktsat, QKD via GEO satellites could offer a value-add of allowing for a sort of “multicast” of a highly secure communication, for example sending secure information to hundreds or thousands of military spots around the world at one time.

The concept remains several years away from commercialization even in leading nations such as South Korea, however it is worth noting that China and South Korea have some similarities in terms of having a strong emphasis on having high-tech security and military apparatus, and they invest significant amounts in R&D more generally.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 28 December - 3 January.

1) Deep Blue Aerospace Completed Wet Dress Rehearsal & gives Hints on its 2021 Calendar
Last week, DBA posted an update of the company’s progress, showing notably images of the completion of the wet dress rehearsal of their “Nebula-M No.1” experimental rocket. This included the erection of the LV, connecting electrical & hydraulic systems, and cooling/loading fuel.

Nebula-M will not actually be a product of the DBA Nebula rocket family. Nebula-M is a small experimental test vehicle (only 7.3 m tall!), and its purpose is to test Vertical Take-off Vertical Landing (VTVL), a key technology for reusability. DBA is planning static firing tests in 2021, and if all goes well, it will proceed to “hops”, very much like what iSpace is planning (or what SpaceX initially did with the Grasshopper).

2) OTT Airlines Maiden Flight
On 28 December, OTT Airlines (aka 1-2-3 Airlines) made its maiden flight from Shanghai Hongqiao to Beijing Capital. The China Eastern Airlines subsidiary was founded in February 2020 as a regional airline. The airline is noteworthy in that its order book is entirely Chinese--OTT plans to fly ARJ21s and C919s, both manufactured by COMAC (though with many foreign components, as we highlighted in our news update for the week of 7-13 December 2020).

As a subsidiary of China Eastern, OTT Airlines likely has significant financial resources. The airline is another example of China’s localization drive, with most Chinese airlines today having large legacy fleets of predominantly Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Starting from scratch, OTT will be taking deliveries of several ARJ21 this year.

3) China and Italy Celebrate 50 Years of Diplomatic Relations
China and Italy celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations this week, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio having a video conference to discuss cooperation. Of note to the space industry is the fact that space was indeed an area of emphasis during the discussion. The most apparent example is that Italy will have a small payload on the Chang’e-6 mission.

4) Not China-Related, but significant
Hanwha announced a $30 million investment into flat-panel antenna (FPA) company Kymeta. Kymeta is a company building FPAs for the LEO broadband constellations that are being developed by SpaceX/Amazon/etc. The company is noteworthy for having attracted significant funding from Bill Gates. This week, Korean conglomerate Hanwha announced a $30 million investment into the company. This follows Hanwha’s earlier acquisition of Phasor, another FPA manufacturing company.

Moving forward, as China builds out its own industrial base for a LEO broadband constellation, it is noteworthy that Korean companies such as Hanwha are getting increasingly significantly involved in the space. Such companies will likely serve as competitors to Chinese companies such as CETC, who are also working to develop the ground component of China’s LEO broadband ambitions.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. Thanks for watching, and we wish you a wonderful year in 2021!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 21-27 December:

1) Long March 8 Launch (follow-up)
The Long March-8 launched for the first time on 21 December, with the payload including 5 satellites. As we discussed in more detail on last week’s episode 12 of the China Aero/space News Roundup, the payload was diverse, with commercial companies, an Ethiopian satellite, and a couple of government/CAS payloads. Some additional information was publicized in the days following the launch that are worth noting.

First, the Tianqi-8 satellite from Guodian Gaoke was apparently launched partly in partnership with Ping’an, possibly China’s largest insurer.
Another satellite of note on the LM-8 launch was the Haisi-1 satellite from Spacety, which was a sort of mini-SAR satellite. SAR remains a relatively less-developed part of the EO sector in China, with optical being a lot more developed.

2) News announcements regarding the calendar of the Chinese Space Station
On December 25th, a ceremony was held in Changsha for the transfer of the Shenzhou-10 capsule to the Province of Hunan. Shenzhou 10 is a mission that took place in 2013.
Before the ceremony, a journalist of China Space News had the opportunity to interview one of the high profile attendees of the day, Zhou Jianping, the chief engineer of China’s crewed spaceflight program. Zhou Jianping gave some very useful insights on the upcoming timeline for the Chinese Space Station.

3) China Space News article on Moon resources
China Space News published a piece last week summarizing the economic benefits of lunar resources. While not much of the China Space News article is really news, it’s interesting to note that it comes a week after the end of the Chang’e 5 mission, which successfully returned lunar samples to Earth. It does suggest that one of the main objectives of the lunar exploration program is to investigate the viability of lunar resources mining. This has been reflected already in multiple interviews of Chinese space industry officials in the past (such as Bao Weimin or Ouyang Ziyuan).

4) China Satcom further verticalizing & pivoting to mobile broadband: Interview of Sun Jing (GM of China Satcom)
Interesting interview of Sun Jing on the 24th of December, discussing the changes in China Satcom’s strategy in recent years. Sun mentions in 2018, ChinaSat acquired the first-class national basic telecommunications license, at which time they chose to work alongside the telecom operators to cover areas not possible to cover with terrestrial fiber, as opposed to potentially competing with them as a telco.
In particular, Sun emphasizes the extent to which ChinaSat is focusing on IFC, including the recent founding of Xinghang Hulian (星航互联), an IFC-focused subsidiary.

5) Completion of the static tests of the Chinese MA700 regional jet
Xi’an Aircraft Corporation completed the static testing of its next generation regional turboprop aircraft, the MA700 (MA = modern ark or 新舟 in Chinese), on December 19.
With the completion of the static tests, the MA700 should be able to begin flight testing in 2021.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. Thanks for watching, and we wish you a wonderful year in 2021!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

There are more than 100 Chinese commercial space companies, almost all having been establishing within the past 5 years. To pick one, or even a handful, as the leading Chinese commercial space companies is no easy task, with hoards to choose from, and with most of the companies being new enough to not actually be making money yet.

With that said, one of the few companies that would make the leaderboard on almost any China watcher’s space list is Landspace Technologies, likely China’s most well-funded commercial launch company. Founded in Beijing in 2015, Landspace has since raised ~US$400 million across 9 funding rounds, has grown to several hundred employees, and claims to be ~1 year away from launching its Zhuque-2 (ZQ-2) medium-lift rocket, a liquid methalox-powered rocket with capabilities of lifting several tons to LEO/SSO, and with eventual plans for reusability.

On episode 6 of the Dongfang Hour, we sat down with Kevin Xu, Chief Marketing Officer at Landspace and one of the company’s early employees. Our conversation was wide-ranging, covering a broad variety of topics including, but not limited to:

Landspace’s business and target market
Differences between working in a new space company such as Landspace, and a traditional space company, such as Kevin’s former employer China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC)
Perceptions of the space industry by Chinese university graduates, and Landspace’s evolving ability to attract top talent
Landspace’s plans for reusability, fuel types, and general rocket strategy
A plethora of other topics, including fan questions related to Kevin’s multilingualism

Some Key Takeaways

Landspace has grown a lot in the past 5 years, as has the space sector in China. Kevin came to Landspace in 2017, and at that time, the company hired 1 fresh graduate during the course of the year. Today, the company receives hundreds of applications per year, and makes dozens of hires. People come to companies like Landspace for a number of reasons, but according to Kevin, one such reason is a desire to do something totally different. Compared to his previous role at CGWIC, which involved many similar projects (selling satellites abroad), Landspace offered the chance to build something new from the ground up.

Despite a huge launch capacity of up to 4 tons on the ZQ-2, Landspace is not terribly concerned about filling their rockets—there’s a lot of demand out there, they say. While not directly mentioned in our discussion, a later webinar with Roger Zhang, CEO of Landspace, saw Zhang mention that Landspace is really only competing with themselves, in the sense that the company is developing a novel technology in China (liquid methalox launch capabilities), and their goal is to reach that point as soon as they can, irrespective of what anyone else is doing. Indeed, it sounds an awful lot like “if you build it, they will come”.

Finally, we found out that Landspace has made some advancements on the international front, with Kevin mentioning that the company expects to announce good news in the coming weeks/months. With Landspace and many other Chinese companies starting to mature to the point of offering a product or service, it is highly likely that they will target international markets, often coming with turnkey packages or financing.

With that being said, there are a lot more insights in the full interview, including Kevin’s thoughts on rocket cams, and detailed information on his linguistic prowess. Until next time, this is the Dongfang Hour, the Podcast on the Chinese Aero/space and Tech Sectors.

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 14-20 December.

1) Long March 8 Launch on Sunday 20/12
Sunday morning (20/12/20) saw plans for the very first launch of China’s latest medium lift launch vehicle, the Long March 8, from Wenchang Launch Center. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed on Sunday due to a tropical storm, but we expect the launch to occur in the coming days.
The payloads will be:
- a classified EO technology satellite by CAST (XJY-7)
- Ethiopian ETHSAT6U (cubesat), in cooperation with Beijing Smart Satellite
- Guodian Gaoke’s Tianqi-12 satellite (for its IoT constellation)
- 2 satellites of Spacety: one in cooperation with CETC (Haisi-1) and the other a technology verification satellite

The LM8 is actually based on a set of rather proven building blocks, used in LM5-7, namely the kerolox YF-100 engines in it’s core stage and boosters (used also in LM 5, 6 and 7), and the YF-75 for the 2nd stage, a hydrolox engine employed already on the LM3 as well as the LM5.

While the upcoming launch is going to be expendable, it is noteworthy that LM8 will (eventually) be CASC’s first attempt at reusability. As was unveiled in 2018, CASC plans to have the first stage, together with the two side boosters, perform vertical landing, throttling the engine and using grid fins for control during the landing stage. This will no doubt mean modifications on the YF-100 to enable the engines to run at lower thrust, to be restartable multiple times.

2) Chang’e-5 Return to Earth
China’s Chang’e 5 return capsule returned to Earth in the evening of December 16th, after a perilous re-entry in the atmosphere. The capsule was located rapidly by search teams and helicopters (equipped with infrared cameras). This was live-streamed on Chinese media, and was absolutely fascinating to watch. On the 19th of December, a ceremony was held to remove the sample container and weigh the sample, which turned out was 1,731 kg as opposed to the expected 2 kg.

3) New JV between China Eastern, Juneyao Group, and China Telecom
On December 16th 2020, China Eastern, Juneyao Group, and China Telecom jointly established a joint-venture called KDLink, which is to focus on connected aircraft.
The press release doesn’t discuss too much in detail the projects of the JV (other than “product innovation, technology innovation and new application”). But China Eastern has been one of the pioneering airlines in China, with approximately half of the connected aircraft in China belonging to the Shanghai-based company. The joint-venture with Juneyao Airlines, another Shanghai-based airline that also operates connected aircraft, could mean a new wave of deployment of (satellite?) connectivity among both airlines’ fleets.

4) Baidu is Considering Making its own Electric Vehicle
Or outsourcing to other manufacturers, as the case may be. Either way, an article appeared this week quoting “three people with knowledge of the matter” saying that Baidu is considering developing their own electric car through collaboration, potentially with Geely.

Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, was the first billionaire in China to talk about the need to open the space industry to private investment, something he was doing as early as 2014.

We thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Our sincere apologies for the late upload of this episode, due to technical issues. Without further ado, the news update from the week of 7-13 December.

1) iSpace making progress in the development of Hyperbola 2
iSpace announced that they had completed the production of the fuel tank for the Hyperbola-2 rocket. The company’s Hyperbola-2 will use liquid methalox fuel, and is China’s first common bulkhead fuel tank for rockets above 3m diameter.

iSpace also completed a week earlier a series of supersonic wind tunnel tests for the vertical landing phase, a crucial moment of the flight with complex aerodynamics and instability.

2) Launch of Long March 11 with 2 CAS satellites
Last week, China saw a launch of a Long March 11 rocket, the 3rd launch of such a rocket in China in 2020. This launch received less cover overall, as it concurred with the Chang’e 5 hype that was taking place at the same time.
This launch of LM-11 took place at Xichang on the 9th of December, and put into orbit 2 smallsats of the GECAM mission (aka Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-Sky Monitor), and initiated by the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing.
Designated KX-08A and KX-08B, each satellite will embark a number of instruments to detect gamma/x wave bursts in the universe.

3) Great article on C919 Suppliers
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank based in DC, published on Dec. 7 a good piece on the Chinese commercial aviation industry, and notably on the poor performance of COMAC, from both an industrial and technical point of view.
According to CSIS, while China admittedly has done admirably in turning itself into a high-tech superpower in a number of industries, commercial aviation is not part of them.

To justify this point, CSIS points to some of the recurring problems of COMAC, including:
- The poor performance of COMAC A/C
- The significant delays that the programs have experienced
- The poor industrial productivity (based on the annual production rate)
- The troubles with certification
- And its reliance on foreign suppliers

All in all, a great piece that we recommend to our viewers, although admittedly we feel that in some areas the paper is overly pessimistic/negative about Chinese commercial aerospace.

4) National Radio and Television Administration Announcement
China’s NRTA announced this week plans for modernization of the country’s broadcast sector. This includes several key phrases, namely “smart business”, “UltraHD/4K”, and also “Satellite internet/converged two-way services” (融合双向业务).

The announcement also hits on the convergence of TV and internet access, that is, most TV can be delivered via internet access. Other points of note in the announcement included a call to build a cloud platform for satellite broadcast (建设直播卫星云平台), and to develop “two-way communications” for satellite broadcast that allow for things like online shopping, smart homes, and digitization of small towns.

Overall, the announcement should be taken as an indication that China wants to modernize its relatively archaic linear broadcast industry.

5) Dongfang Hour reaches 100+ subscribers!
Last but not least, the Dongfang Hour channel has reached 100+ subscribers this week, with a 10% jump in the last few days. While this remains a modest figure, we would like to address a big thanks to our viewers for their support, and hope to bring more valuable content on Chinese aerospace and tech in 2021!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from this week include:

1) Chang’e-5 Lunar Return Mission
Following up on last week’s discussion on Chang’e-5 launch, which occurred on 24 November, this week we bring news of Chang’e-5’s arrival on the Moon.
If we pick up where we left off last weekend on the 29th of November, Chang’e 5 had just inserted itself into orbit around the moon. Since then, the lander has detached and performed an autonomous landing at the landing site, in the area called the Sea of Storms.
The lander then had 48 hours to select the area to drill, perform the drilling, and the sample was then scooped up and stored in the ascent vehicle. All of this was performed successfully on the 2nd of December.
The lander also had the opportunity to take a number of stunning images, with an unprecedented resolution for moon pictures. It also took a snapshot of the Chinese flag held by an extension arm.

On the 4th of December, the ascent module lifted off successfully, leaving the lander on the moon, and which has no further purpose. The ascent module then deployed its solar panels and docked successfully on the 6th of December.

2) Charming Globe Completes a Massive RMB 2.4 Billion Pre-IPO Round of Funding
Chinese EO satellite manufacturer and constellation operator Charming Globe announced a RMB 2.46 billion (US$375M) round of funding on 1 December. The round is considered the company’s “pre-IPO” round, and thus implies that Charming Globe will likely IPO in the near-term. This should be interesting to watch, particularly 1) what do their financials look like, and 2) whether they IPO in Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Star Board. Most recently, a company representative noted earlier this year that the company’s 2019 revenues were around RMB 100M. This is somewhat astonishing when comparing these two numbers--

This represents the single largest funding round by a Chinese commercial space company. Charming Globe is arguably China’s leading EO satellite manufacturer. The company is a CAS spinoff, HQed in Changchun, Jilin province, and to now already has 20+ satellites in orbit, many of which have been launched by Kuaizhou rockets.

The company has plans for 60x EO satellites in its first phase constellation, and 138x EO satellites in its second phase constellation. Noteworthily, CGSTL’s satellites are primarily optical, due to the fact that the company is a spinoff from the CAS Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics. The company has announced some initiatives for SAR and hyperspectral, and this funding may also help develop these technologies.

Charming Globe is noteworthy for being one of several “hybrids” in China, which is to say, a commercial company that has some affiliation with the state. In the case of CGSTL, the company is a spinoff from CAS, but has a rather unusual shareholder structure.

3) Recommended article on Yaogan
From around 1.5 weeks ago, an excellent article from a French aerospace/space blog about China’s recent Yaogan launch, and the constellation more generally. The article gives some interesting insights on the strategic importance of Yaogan, what it might be used for, and what we might expect in the future from China in terms of signal intelligence and EO. The article also includes some excellent data visualization and is preceded by a couple of related articles on Yaogan by the same author.

We thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfangho

View Details

Welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! In this week's episode we bring you:

1) Chang’e-5 Lunar Return Mission
Tuesday morning (24/11 Beijing time) saw the launch of Chang’e-5 at Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan. The launch was a success, and represents China’s first lunar sample-return mission. It is also the first sample-return mission since the Soviet Luna 24 mission in 1976. After a number of maneuvers in its Earth-Moon trajectory, the spacecraft successfully entered lunar orbit.

2) China Satcom replacing older broadcast satellites
An article by Satellite World revealed that China Satcom would be replacing a number of older broadcast satellites in 2021-2023. All satellites would be purchased from CAST, and based on the DFH-4E platform. The satellites would launch on LM-3B, China’s current workhorse for GEO. The transaction was said to reach 3,918 billion RMB (approx 600 million USD).

Below is a list of the satellites:
Chinasat 6D (to replace 6A; C & Ku band payloads)
Chinasat 6E (to replace 6B; C & Ku band payloads)
Chinasat 9B (to replace 9A; Ku BSS band payloads)

In addition, the Chinasat 26 (Ka band) satellite will be a welcome addition to the currently operational Chinasat-16, the Shijian-20, and the future Chinasat-19.

3) The Trump Administration could blacklist 89 companies with “military ties”
According to Reuters, the Trump administration is preparing to blacklist 89 Chinese companies, including a large number of major aviation companies such as COMAC (building the C919) and the aerospace conglomerate AVIC. U.S. suppliers will ”need special licenses to sell a broad set of commercially available items to such companies” according to the piece by Reuters.
Are we heading towards a “post-Cox Report” situation for aviation as well?
If this blacklist is made official and effective before the Biden administration take-over, this could lead to a total disruption of the civil aviation industry in China. The blacklist bears a strong resemblance to the restrictions US space companies faced when selling to China, after the Cox Report in 1998. The consequences on both sides would be more massive for aviation:
- China is no small market to Boeing. It represents 20% of the entire global commercial aviation market, and where Boeing is a dominant player alongside Airbus.
- The disruption would be devastating for the Chinese civil aviation market. While China’s local supply chain has grown tremendously, it still depends heavily on non-Chinese suppliers. Aircraft like the C919 are likely to come to a full stop.

4) CASIC Methalox Engine
Expace released photos of its Mingfeng methalox engine earlier this week. The engine completed a systems-level hot test, with the test verifying the integrity of the engine system, thrust chamber, combustor, turbo pump, valve, and final assembly.

Expace is more famous up to this point for having developed the KZ-1A fast-response solid rocket. With the KZ-1A, Expace has built a pretty reliable, fast-response rocket that can be deployed using a transporter erector launcher.

5) World 5G Convention in Guangzhou
The World 5G Convention opened in Guangzhou last week. During the Convention, the Chief Designer of BeiDou 3rd Generation, Yang Changfeng, noted that all core components of BeiDou-3 were being manufactured domestically. Yang also noted that around 80% of phones in China are now equipped with BeiDou-3 chip sets. Yang linked BeiDou-3 with 5G by noting that many elements of 5G will rely on highly precise location data.

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! In this episode, we bring you the following updates on Chinese space:

1) ChinaSat-16 5G Test

ChinaSat announced the country’s first 5G broadband test using Ka-band GEO-HTS capacity, with the company’s ChinaSat-16 satellite. The tests were carried out in collaboration with China Mobile and Huawei, and achieved download speeds of ~90 Mbps, upload speeds of 3.5 Mbps, and ping of >700 ms (long way to GEO). The press release notes that China Satcom was also the first company in China to do 4G via Ka-band satellite, and that they are planning for 5G and 6G via GEO-HTS.

2) Launch of Tiantong-1 02

November the 12th saw the launch of the Tiantong-1 02 satellite into GEO orbit, riding on a Long March 3B..

The satellite is the second GEO satellite of the Tiantong-1 GEO constellation (Tiantong-1 01 was launched in 2016). Tiantong-1 constellation, once completed, will cover China, the Western Pacific, Central Asia and the Middle East. The 3rd and ultimate satellite will be Tiantong-1 03, to be launched next year. There are discussions to extend the constellation for a global coverage (Tiantong 04, 05, in 2023 and 2025).

In the long run, Tiantong-1 could be a challenge to Thuraya and Inmarsat, which do have a market in China or with Chinese companies. Among the challenges: Chinese SoEs could make the switch; also, the Chinese have the reputation of being more aggressive in pricing of bandwidth as well as on the hardware side (terminals).

3) Galaxy Space Funding Round

Galaxy Space completed a B+ round of funding, with the company achieving a valuation of RMB 8 billion, up from RMB 5 billion at the most recent funding round (September 2019), and up from RMB 3 billion as of 2 years ago (funding round in November 2018). Noteworthily, the first investor mentioned in this round is the 南通科技创业投资, which is, according to Tianyancha, relatively old and well-established as far as city-level VCs go (founded in 2011, a bunch of existing investments in areas like e-health). Other investors include Shunwei, Matrix China, and Chaos China (great name for a VC).

The amount of funding was not specified, but funding will go towards the construction of Galaxy Space’s previously unveiled “Satellite Superfactory”, in Nantong, near Shanghai. The factory will aim to be highly automated, and produce 300-500 satellites per year, with this specifically stated as helping to support the April 20, 2020 ruling by NDRC to add Satellite Internet to China’s list of “new infrastructures”. Finally, the above article notes that Galaxy Space’s second satellite is in the final stages of assembly.

4) Appearance of Shandong Space

This past week saw the announcement of yet another commercial rocket company, this time from Shandong Province. Shandong Space (山东宇航) posted a series of job vacancies via the official Wechat account of the Shandong Institute of Space Technology (山东宇航技术研究院). We know very little about the company to now, with a cursory Baidu search revealing essentially zero further information.

5) KFC Truck

“Only in China news of the week: KFC launches autonomous 5G trucks in China. Users can buy their chicken from a fully autonomous food cart outside a Shanghai metro station.

View Details

Welcome to episode 7 of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup, covering the period of November 9 to 15! In this week's episode, we bring you the following bits of Chinese space news:

1) Long March 6 launch
November 6 saw a LM-6 launch with 13x satellites. This was admittedly last week, but heck, we had a lot of stuff last week, and there’s a lot to unpack here. The official CASC press release mentions 13 satellites, of which 10 were for Satellogic, 1x was for the Northwest Polytechnical University, 1x was a satellite jointly built by MinoSpace, ADASpace, and UESTC, and 1x was a satellite for Beihang, Spacety, and Thrustme. There were several noteworthy elements here:

-10x satellites for Satellogic. Satellogic is an Argentinian commercial EO startup with longtime links to China. One of the company's biggest financial backers is Chinese tech behemoth Tencent, with the latter having led Satellogic’s recent Series B round. Satellogic has parlayed its China connections into at least one contract in China, with the government of Henan province and a Chinese partner.
The MinoSpace/ADASpace/UESTC satellite represents an example of a company with significant support from Chengdu government (ADASpace) partnering with a major research university in Chengdu (UESTC) and a more advanced smallsat manufacturer. (MinoSpace). The satellite launch was later publicized by UESTC as a 6G test satellite.
The Spacety/Thrustme satellite is a good example of cooperation between Chinese and western space companies.

2) APT Satellite Small GEO Order
APT Satellite of Hong Kong ordered a small GEO from CGWIC earlier this month. The small GEO is based on the DFH-3E platform and will launch on a Long March 2C, manufactured by CAST. While they are right to say it’s smaller than, say, the DFH-4, the DFH-3E is not really a “small GEO” to the extent that say Astranis or Saturn are small GEOs. While Astranis and Saturn are building small GEOs that are some hundreds of kg, the DFH-3E is closer in size to a regular satellite. According to another article from CGWIC, the DFH-3E has a launch mass of 3200kg, which is ~60% of the size of a standard GEO satellite. The satellite delivery is to occur by 31 August 2023. The satellite will be used to “provide telecommunications services in the Asia-Pacific region”. Noteworthily, some sources quoted the satellite as being ~1300kg instead. This would make more sense, as the LM-2C, the LV selected for the launch, has a maximum payload to GTO of about ~1300 kg. The official APT Satellite regulatory filing did not specify a mass for the satellite.

3) Emergence of Xi’an Ziyou Xingchen Tech Company
This week saw the emergence of Xi’an Ziyou Xingchen Tech Co. (aka. Freedom Star) The company seems to not have an official website, and we only learned about them through the China Space News (中国航天报) recent article discussing them. We know that Freedom Star is developing a solid rocket, and that they recently completed engine tests.

4) China Hi-Tech Fair
Last week saw the China Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen. Our correspondent LAN Tianyi was in attendance, and provided us with some interesting tidbits. In particular, we saw some results from the Galaxy Space “5G Broadband test satellite”. Similar to Xingyun and Hongyun, it appears that Galaxy Space is making some impressive strides in application development using only a single test satellite.

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. Thanks for watching!

Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! This week we bring you updates on Galactic Energy, China’s maritime satcom industry and the product offerings therein, and China’s role in the regional EO market.

1) Galactic Energy completed a RMB 200 million Series A funding round in September, a round that was announced last week. This is the company’s first round in ~11 months, having raised RMB 150M in Oct 2019. The company has now raised ~RMB 500 million across 4 rounds, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact that they were founded just under 3 years ago. Funding will go towards accelerating the development of the company’s Pallas-1 and Ceres-1 rockets. Galactic Energy is now quite likely one of the top 4 commercial launch companies in China, along with Landspace, iSpace, and Expace.

This status in the “Big Four’ of China’s commercial launch sector was enhanced just a couple of days ago, when on November 7th 2020, Galactic Energy held the inaugural launch of its solid rocket the Ceres-1, becoming the 2nd private company in China to put a satellite into orbit after iSpace. Ceres-1, much like iSpace’s Hyperbola-1, is a small rocket with a capacity of 350 kg into LEO. While similar in propulsion technology, there are some definite slight differences between the two rockets (separation method, attitude control). Galactic Energy’s inaugural launch on the 7th was also noteworthy in that it was commercial, with the Ceres-1 rocket launching the Tianqi-11 satellite for Guodian Gaoke, a satellite manufacturer that plans to launch and operate the Tianqi constellation.

2) In the maritime space, we saw announced this week that the CASIC 2nd Academy, in partnership with the China Unicom Research Institute and the government of Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province, completed China’s first “Low Orbit Broadband Satellite + 5G Maritime” test. While the article, which was originally published by the CASIC 2nd academy, does not explicitly mention Hongyun, the phrasing of LEO broadband satellite would almost certainly imply that the tests were using the Hongyun test satellite, launched in late 2018.
Separately, as part of China’s 11/11 “Singles Day”, a huge online shopping day, we saw SinoSat release its 11/11 promotions for its Haixingtong maritime satcom service, which included 200MB of free data upon signing up, RMB 800 per year for unlimited voice. SinoSat is a ChinaSat subsidiary with focus on several high-value verticals with global requirements, i.e. maritime satcom, and has been building out a maritime satcom service for several years using satellite capacity from ChinaSat among others.

3) Finally, the Asia-Oceania Group on Earth Observations (AO GEO) held a meeting in Changzhou early in the week. The event was attended by 15 countries and several international organizations. “China is playing an important role in the Asia-Oceania region, with the second highest number of remote sensing satellites in the world and its application of Earth observation shifting from experimental use to business services”, said Wang Qi’an, the director of the National Remote Sensing Center of China

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

View Details

This week, we bring you updates on China’s Earth Observation sector, discussions on satellite 5G/6G and IoT, but first, part 2 of our summary of the 6th annual China Commercial Aerospace Forum, held in Wuhan 2 weeks ago.

6th China Commercial Aerospace Forum Summary (part 2/2):

iSpace: One of the leading private launch companies in China, company VP Huo Jia at CCAF discussed their plans for Hyperbola-2, as well as post-Hyperbola-2 projects:
- Hyperbola-2: 100 km hopping experiments to test the landing/engine throttling/control capabilities by end of 2020; and then full orbital test of Hyperbola-2 if hopping tests are conclusive.
- Hyperbola-3: a medium lift rocket, which can be turned to heavy lift with 2 or 4 side boosters. Development of the Jiaodian-2 heavy thrust methalox engine (100 tons thrust).
Zhongke Aerospace (aka CAS Space): technical discussion on launch vehicle control, also indicated that the first launch of ZK-1 would be in september 2021.
EO companies with an increasing vertical approach to the industry: A number of EO companies have seen major traction over the past several years, and several of them spoke at the CCAF. Several EO companies are vertically integrating across different parts of the value chain.
Related to EO, pretty good article published tby Satellite & Network (卫星与网络) about investment into the EO sector. It mentions that the ‘midstream’ services in EO are most popular for private investment, partly because compared to the other two main types of space applications (comms and satnav), EO is “more open to commercial enterprise and with stronger commercial flexibility”.

Non-CCAF news

Yaogan launch: a group of 3x Yaogan satellites were launched from Xichang this week. Yaogan is one of China’s largest EO initiatives, with the satellites believed to be focused on military applications. Piggy backing the Yaogan launch was the Tianqi-6 satellite of the Guodian Gaoke's 38-satellite IoT constellation.

Other Conferences

China Satellite Conference: The conference was standing room only, with a sold-out house at the Nikko Hotel in Beijing. Interesting takeaway was the sub-forum on Satellite 5G and 6G, which included CETC and could be an indication of CETC pushing more into space as a way of expanding their business.
China Industrial IoT + 5G Forum Wuhan: at the forum, MIIT discussed the idea of industrial IoT + 5G. Ms Han Xia, Director of Information and Communication Administration Bureau of MIIT, mentioned 3 challenges faced by rollout of Industrial IoT:
- Uneven levels of digitization among enterprises.
- Insufficient industrial support capacity for things like gateways, terminals, etc.
- Integrated applications still need to be deepened/improved
A related article mentioned that in China, there have been more than 800 “Industrial IoT + 5G” projects commenced thus far, with a total investment of RMB 3.4 billion.

View Details

Hi there! This week, Dongfang Hour brings you a focus on the 6th Annual China Commercial Aerospace Forum (CCAF), held last week in Wuhan and hosted by CASIC.
This week we discuss updates on CASIC's projects, and next week we will summarize other commercial space announcements.

1) Context of CCAF/CASIC/Wuhan

The Chinese space industry is commercializing, and CASIC is playing a role in this process. In CASIC’s quest to commercialize space, the company has enrolled the Hubei Government as an ally, with the province (and its capital, Wuhan), playing host to CASIC’s Wuhan Aerospace Industrial Base (WAIB), a multi-billion USD initiative that includes manufacturing facilities for rockets and satellites. Each year at the CCAF, CASIC provides updates on these projects.

2) Update on CASIC’s constellationsXingyunis being developed by CASIC's subsidiary, LEOBit Technologies. The project is based in Wuhan, and aims to build a constellation to connect CASIC’s burgeoning industrial IoT infrastructure.

During the forum, LEOBit's Deputy GM Mr. DU Li presented a useful reminder of Xingyun’s timeline. It will be deployed in 3 steps: alpha (test phase) - beta (partial deployment, 12 satellites) - gamma (global coverage, 80 satellites), in respectively 2020, 2021, and 2023.

Other points of interest from LEOBit's keynote included:

Very significant development of terminals for different applications.
Images from LEOBit of their facilities.
The emphasis on applications also partly explains the slow development on the space segment side.
We also learned that within the 14th Five-Year Plan (i.e. by 2025), Xingyun hopes to have roughly 200 satellites in orbit.

Hongyunvice GM Mr. Wang Chong provided an update on the broadband constellation. Most interesting was the emphasis on the concept of “通导遥一体化”, or the integration of comms, satnav, and EO. Wang also showed information from a battery of tests conducted using the Hongyun satellite. Interestingly, while there has been increased speculation within China about consolidation among the state-owned constellations, there was no mention of larger constellations (like the recently-leaked GW).

3) Updates on CASIC’s launchers

Expace reiterated plans for production of ~50 rockets per year at WAIB by an undefined timeline. The company mentioned several times in an interview the phrase “批量化”, “batch production”, which is distinct from mass production (大批量话), noting that Expace has achieved 批量化 in many of their processes. To now, Expace has been one of the more successful “commercial” launch companies in China.

4) Other News

China and Ukraine Deal

China and Ukraine sign a long-term cooperation agreement for space, encompassing 69 projects totaling >$70M over the period of 2021-2025. The projects include a joint space research laboratory and stronger information exchanges between the two countries.

CGWIC BRI Satcom Report

Earlier this week, CGWIC released a report (borrowing from Euroconsult data with proper and very kind citation) about opportunities for communications satellites in Belt and Road regions. An interesting report for those interested in learning more about BRI satcom opportunities.

View Details

Welcome to another episode of the China Aerospace Weekly News Roundup! This week, we cover two interesting developments in EO and launch:

1) A big week in EO
It was a big week in China’s EO and meteorology sector. First, China launched the Gaofen-13 EO satellite at just after midnight on Monday 12 October. It is the second Gaofen satellite bound for geostationary orbit, an interesting choice and a must-have for any sufficiently large EO constellation. Gaofen-13 is the latest in China’s Gaofen constellation, a primarily civil constellation of EO satellites of which there are currently ~20 satellites (depending on whether one defines the Jilin-Gaofen series, operated by Charming Globe, as part of the Gaofen series). The launch was the first in a couple of months for Xichang, with the launch center having undergone a series of upgrades to increase its annual launch capacity from around 17 to 30.

Somewhat related to Gaofen, China’s Fengyun meteorological EO satellites celebrated their 50th anniversary this week. Chinese Premier (#2 most powerful politician) Li Keqiang wrote a statement on the importance of Fengyun, and Hu Chunhua (Vice Premier of CCP) attended an event for Fengyun. Premier Li’s statement was featured prominently on CASC’s homepage, and is seen as a high-level endorsement of the program more generally.

2) Developments on a deal between Guangzhou and the CAS
The Municipal Government of the southern city of Guangzhou and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) had signed an agreement in 2019 to jointly build a 99-square-kilometer Nansha Science City in Nansha (a rural district of Guangzhou). Several space institutes & companies will open facilities there, including CAS Spaceflight Technology Center (research) and the Zhongke Aerospace Exploration company (commercial launch company). On September 29 2020, the Zhongke Aerospace conference was held there, officially kicking off the construction of the project.

Zhongke Aerospace, aka CAS Space, is a CAS spin-off with main headquarters in Beijing. The company plans to develop solid & liquid rockets, aiming at 30 rockets per year by an undefined timeline. Liquid rockets seem reusable (see rocket family infographic on YT).

The move is interesting because the space industry of Guangdong has historically punched below its weight. Guangdong is a province of 100M people, the GDP is roughly as big as Russia or South Korea, and it is home to many of the world’s biggest tech companies--Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, Ping’an, DJI BYD, etc. The economy of Guangdong has historically been more “commercial”/export oriented, however, which has contributed to relatively limited space activity. With a major initiative such as the Nansha Science City, we may see the Guangdong space sector start to accelerate its development.

3) And another recent IPO company share price continued to “rocket”
Shaanxi Zhongtian, a CASC subsidiary that IPOed on 25 September, continues to go up the 10% daily limit every day, now (Monday 19 Oct) having reached 10 days in a row of +10%, i.e. 250%+ return since IPO (would be ~RMB 18.6 per share to RMB 48 per share). The company’s performance is an indication of probably three factors, namely: 1) lot of savings in China, 2) strong investor preference for state-owned companies that are seen as more stable, and 3) Few ways for average investors to invest into the space sector. The biggest winner here? Probably CASC, which has seen their stake in Zhongtian increase in value from ~RMB 1.5 billion to ~RMB 4 billion.

View Details

Good day and welcome to episode 5 of the Dongfang Hour, the China Aerospace and Tech Podcast. Today we are discussing China’s funky space industry. Before going into our list of funky projects, we will have two definitions of “funky” in this episode:

Plain old funky. This refers to projects that are funky in every sense of the word--funky technologies, business models, etc. This includes space planes, solar harvesting, and electromagnetic rockets.
Funky in an “only in China” way. This refers to companies buying orbital slots as a way of moving money out of China, or online video giants that can justify buying their own EO satellite.

Without further ado, here is the list of today's discussion. Sources and useful material are available on our website here.

Space planes
- Overview of Chinese space plane projects
- CASIC's very ambitious Tengyun space plane project
CASIC’s Five Clouds
- CASIC's ambitious Five Cloud projects, and prospects in commercial space
Electromagnetic launch
- September 2020 saw a press release from Guangzhou Guoyao Tech about electromagnetic launch ambitions.
Satcom
- The story of Chinese company Tatwah Smartech trading an orbital slot for a 49% stake in a Sri Lankan satellite operator
- Tatwah's adventures in Sri Lanka
- CGWIC satellites sold to developing countries
Commsat/LadyBeetle Selfie Satellite
- Commsat, the LadyBeetle-1 satellite, and space selfies
Bilibili Satellite
- Bilibili's space channel project
- General discussion of Chinese tech companies as an "equivalent" of US companies
Artificial Moon/Chengdu Death Star
- An artificial moon project in Chengdu to replace street lights
Chongqing as future solar harvesting center of China
- Chongqing to become the center of China’s space solar power harvesting industry by 2030, and the feasibility of such projects.

Thanks again for listening, and we look forward to seeing you next time!

Feel free to engage in a discussion with us through the comment section or by email (dfhour@gmail.com). Follow us on YouTube and on https://www.dongfanghour.com/.
And feel free to give this episode a thumbs-up/Like. It helps the channel!

View Details

Disclaimer initially--it’s a slow week on account of holiday. Also, happy holidays everyone! Be sure to check out our Longjiang-2 satellite image of the moon/earth that we posted on 1 October.

This week's news update includes:
OneSpace C-round of funding. Company announced the funding round in early-September, but did it quite quietly. We just heard about it this week. It’s a C round of an undisclosed amount, with the investors being Liangjiang Investment Fund, Zhengxuan Investment, HIT Robotics Fund, and Huijin Capital → most which are already previous investors, showing continued confidence of the core investors.
- It also represents the latest example of a trend of involvement of regional and provincial governments, which we highlighted in an upcoming ESPI report (plug for ESPI report), as Liangjiang Group （两江集团）of Chongqing is an investor this round, and OneSpace has officially relocated their HQ to Chongqing. Interesting stuff.

Apstar-6D reached its orbital slot this week. Satellite represents an interesting business case--large payload of interesting capacity; Ku-band HTS broadly over APAC with emphasis on mobility routes. Satellite will be operated primarily by APT Mobile Satcom of Shenzhen, but probably some cooperation from APT Satellite of Hong Kong, and by extension. It’s interesting because APSATCOM now kind of puts APT Satellite into competition with ChinaSat, even though ChinaSat owns a big piece of APT Satellite, and thus also of APSATCOM.

Upcoming conferences:

CCAF 2020: 19-20 October
China Satellite conference 2020: 28-30 October

View Details

Hello, and thanks for stopping by the Dongfang Hour! Today, we are pleased to introduce a new initiative from the DFH, namely the China Aero and Space Weekly News Roundup. The Roundup will act as a ~15mins per week supplement to our more in-depth ~60min ~monthly discussions on various Chinese aerospace and space industry topics. Updates from this week:

An article from independent Chinese space media source “小火箭“ (“Small Rocket”) detailed massively expanded plans for China’s LEO broadband constellations. The article was removed soon after publication, and we cannot verify the authenticity of the plans. However, 小火箭 is a known media source in the industry, and we believe the article was likely more than unsubstantiated rumors. The constellation plans to have nearly 13,000 satellites across 7 “sub-constellations”.
Shaanxi Zhongtian Rocket Company completed its IPO on the Shenzhen stock exchange. The company has seen its share price increase by the 10% limit every day since IPO, though this week the market has been closed due to National Holiday/”Golden Week”.
A fairing from a Long March-5B launch that occurred in May 2020 washed up on the beach in Hong Kong. Local media had a field day with (incorrect, I have been told) speculation about the risks of contamination.
An excellent Space Cafe talk hosted by SpaceWatch.Global, and featuring Dr. Bhavya Lal of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) on the topic of Chinese commercial space.

View Details

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Dongfang Hour. This week, we invite our very first guest to the podcast to discuss satellite constellations, and what a guest!

LAN Tianyi is the CEO of Ultimate Blue Nebula and SpaceKey, two Beijing-based firms focusing on satellite/space industry consulting & research. Having spent several years working inside China’s state-owned space apparatus (largely at CAST and its subsidiaries), Tianyi branched off on his own in 2014, and has since been consulting with many of China’s most successful and dynamic commercial space companies. Today, in addition to his two companies, Tianyi is actively involved in the China Satellite Conference, an annual event in Beijing, as well as Satellite World, a Chinese satellite news publication.

On today’s episode, we discuss communications constellations. This year has seen a significant acceleration in the rollout of western low Earth orbit (LEO) communications constellations, with the most obvious example being Starlink. Less publicly, Chinese constellation projects have made steady progress throughout the year, and while we are unlikely to see any Chinese constellation with hundreds of satellites in orbit by year-end, there is much to discuss about these projects.

Some key takeaways:

The biggest constellation projects in China are Hongyan, Xingyun, and Hongyun, all of which are being developed by state-owned enterprises. Given the business model of broadband constellations (ISP from space), and given the degree of control that the Chinese government exercises over the internet, it is highly likely that the country’s first broadband constellation will be managed by SOEs.

That being said, a number of private companies have entered the fray, with oftentimes rapidly evolving business models. This includes Commsat, Galaxy Space, MinoSpace, and others. These private companies have different focuses, but most aim to address a piece of the constellation puzzle. Commsat wants to mass-manufacture smallsats for large constellations, MinoSpace has a similar plan, with both companies having much “space” in their DNA. Galaxy Space, on the other hand, has a leadership team that comes from a more general tech/telecommunications background, and as such, is working on developing applications related to 5G and IoT.

The private companies and SOEs have found a common ally in local and provincial governments in China. Following the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)’s announcement supporting satellite broadband as a “new infrastructure” in China, several provincial and city governments doubled down on their efforts to bring satellite broadband companies to their jurisdiction. This included Galaxy Space announcing a “superfactory” in Nantong and Commsat announcing factories in Yibin (Sichuan) and Tangshan (Hebei).

China’s constellations are closely linked with other initiatives, such as the Belt & Road Spatial Information Corridor, the “New Infrastructure” projects, etc.

Finally, we also expect constellation projects with highly specific target markets to be more open to private companies—for example, Geely’s plan for a constellation to provide enhanced navigation, implicitly to Geely cars, is seen as less controversial than plans to become an “ISP from space”.

Sources of interest are available on our website.

Thanks for tuning in!

View Details

This week is the second part of our two-part series on Chinese commercial launch. For those who missed Part I, a history of Chinese Commercial Launch, check out Episode 2 of this podcast!

Last time we left off at the dawn of China’s private launch era. Having discussed the major state-owned companies and their respective rockets, we will now shift our attention to the plethora of privately-owned launch companies entering the Chinese market today.

Some key takeaways:
The launch industry in China is big, and it is surprisingly diverse. As discussed last time, the biggest players in the launch industry in China are subsidiaries of CASC—namely the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), and the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST). These two companies produce all current Long March rockets. With that said, the past 6 years have seen the launch industry become much bigger than just these two companies.

Late 2014 saw the Chinese government publish “Document 60”, which began the process of opening specific industries, including launch, to private investment. Since the publishing of Document 60, we have seen no less than 15 commercial/most privately-owned launch companies emerge in China. Most of these companies aspire to build full rockets, though some have elected to focus on specific technologies, i.e. propulsion systems.

Indeed, the number of new launch startups is so great, that people within the industry refer to a “First Generation” and “Second Generation” of Chinese private launch companies. Today, we provide a rundown of the companies, their rockets, the challenges and opportunities that they face, and what we might expect from these companies moving forward.

Feel free to engage in a discussion with us through the comment section or by email. Follow us on YouTube and on https://www.dongfanghour.com/.
And feel free to give this episode a thumbs-up/Like. It helps the channel!

View Details

This week, we discussed the history of China’s commercial launch industry, and commercial space industry more generally.
China has a long and winding history of commercial launch services. Having launched their first satellite in 1970, China developed a commercial launch industry in the 1980s and 1990s, launching foreign satellites (including a handful of American ones, which were made politically possible by the 1986 Challenger Disaster, and subsequent decision by the US to stop flying commercial satellites on the Space Shuttle). Over the course of the late 1980s and 1990s, China’s commercial launch industry picked up some international market share and was seeing initial signs of success, but this all changed with multiple failures in the mid-1990s, namely Apstar-2 and Intelsat-708. The two failures--both involving American-made satellites--led to the United States barring the launch of sensitive American technology on Chinese rockets, with this meaning no American-made satellites, and indeed few European-made ones, could launch on Chinese rockets.

This turning point caused China to focus on developing turnkey space solutions for export, that is, building the satellite, launch vehicle, and all assorted hardware and technical services. This model has seen some success, with China having exported rocket launches and satellites to countries including Pakistan, Nigeria, and Venezuela. However, it has faced challenges, including the relatively limited market size for $300M turnkey satellites.

Partly as a result, and partly because of increasing innovation coming from the west, China has opened its space industry to more commercial companies and investors, and in no vertical has this been more apparent than launch. While China’s most advanced commercial launch companies are only just now reaching the point of providing commercial launch services, we are likely to see more activity from these companies in the future.

Feel free to engage in a discussion with us through the comment section or by email.
Follow us on YouTube and on https://www.dongfanghour.com/

View Details

Welcome to the very first episode of the Dongfang Hour!
In 2020, China is undeniably one of the leading space-faring nations, among the other space pioneering countries which are the USA, Russia, the EU (as a trade block), and to a lesser extent Japan, India and Canada. Yet within this already heterogeneous lot, China is undeniably the odd man out, with a space industry that is notably different from its partners. “Space with Chinese Characteristics”, if you will. In this very first episode of Dongfang Hour, we go over the main differences between China and other spacefaring nations, covering governance, policy, structure of the industry, and international exchanges. We also give a short introduction to what is Dongfang Hour, and, despite the often opaque nature of Chinese aerospace, why we find it fascinating.

Feel free to engage in a discussion with us through the comment section or by email.
Follow us on YouTube and on https://www.dongfanghour.com/

Dongfang Hour - the China Space Podcast: Recent Episodes