China Space in 2024: A Review
Records in Funding and Launch 💲 🚀 The rise of Satcom 🛰️ And Overcapacity 🏭
Dear Readers,
Happy New Year! 2024 was quite the year in Chinese space, with records for number of launches (just barely), number of satellites launched, and funds raised. On the rise is satellite communications, and to some extent on the wane is remote sensing. Commercial space continues to grow by leaps and bounds, buffetted by government support and renewed investor interest in the sector. And overall sector valuation probably increased, with an annual list of the 100 most valuable space companies published by Taibo seeing total valuation grow from ¥625B in 2023 to ¥733B in 2024.
This is all starting to look bubbly, but as major constellations like GeeSpace and Thousand Sails pick up momentum and create real demand for launchers, satellite systems manufacturers, and other suppliers, we might just see sustained growth for a few more years or more, letting companies grow into some of these valuations. Without further ado, let’s dig into the year that was.
The Launch Report: Another Record Year (Only Just)
2024 was the most active year yet for Chinese launch, with 68 rockets successfully carrying 270 satellites into orbit, topping last year’s 66 and 216.
The Long March series continued to dominate China’s launch sector, accounting for 53 of the 68 launches in 2024, sending 184 of the 270 satellites to orbit. Apart from a partial failure of a LM-2C/YZ-1 carrying the DRO-A/DRO-B satellites in March, it was a perfect year for the Long March. SAST notably continued a perfect streak of launches dating back to May 2019, with their LM-2, -4, -6, and variants launching successfully 26 times in 26 attempts. China Rocket sent a couple of Jielong-3’s into orbit during the year, a promising sign for the ramp-up of CASC’s main commercial launch subsidiary.
On the commercial side of the market, 2024 saw a drop in number of launches with 15 compared to 18 in 2023, with the number of satellites dropping from 67 to 77. This is in part due to the fact that the biggest customer of commercial launch vehicles to date, CGSTL, lowering its launch cadence this year, and also due to SpaceSail choosing only state-built rockets thus far for its Thousand Sails constellation.
Highlights of the commercial sector include Galactic Energy, which went 5/5 on launches of its Ceres-1, sending a company record 23 satellites into orbit in the process (in 2023 they went 5/6 and sent 21 satellites). CAS Space had a headline-making year with three successful launches of their ZK-1A (Lijian-1A) sending 25 satellites into orbit by November. Expace returned to form with several successful KZ-1A launches in addition to their medium-lift Kuaizhou-11.
2024 saw three launch failures, with a CAS Space ZK-1A failing with 11 satellites in December, a Hyperbola-1A from iSpace failing with 3 satellites in July, and a LM-2C/YZ-1 suffering the aforementioned partial failure in March.
Satellites: The Rise of China’s Starlink Competitors
China launched 270 satellites in 2024, a modest increase from 216 satellites in 2023. The headline numbers conceal an underlying trend, however: the notable increase in the number of communications satellites being launched.
In 2024, China launched 105 comms satellites, compared to 26 in 2023 (and only 102 combined in 2019-2023). The catalyst for this was the October 2023 announcement by MIIT that opened up the satellite internet sector. Demonstrating the speed with which Chinese commercial space projects can move, within ~14 months of the MIIT announcement SpaceSail had launched 54 of its Thousand Sails satellites. Towards the end of the year, we also saw the first batch of 10x SatNet/GuoWang satellites launched. Given both projects’ ample funding, deployment of these two large comms constellations is almost certain to continue into 2025.
The increase in comms was partially offset by a decrease in the number of remote sensing satellites, from 142 in 2023 to 117 in 2024, this caused by leading remote sensing company CGSTL tapering off its rate of new satellite launches. In 2025 we should expect to see continued muted numbers from CGSTL as their Jilin-1 constellation remains relatively new, but smaller, more targeted remote sensing constellations (e.g. PIESat SAR, SuperView, etc.) will likely pick up some slack.
Other areas of activity include meteorology, with two commercial meteo constellations (Tianmu and Yunyao Yuhang) deploying handfuls of satellites in 2024. Commercial spaceflight was also a major topic in 2024, with commercial manufacturer AZSpace announcing a variety of milestones throughout the year, although unsuccessfully ending the year on a low note with their DEER-1 spacecraft being one of the victims on the failed ZK-1A in late December.
Technology: Lasers from Space
We may look back on 2024 as the year that China got very serious about space lasers. Laser comms companies raised nearly ¥1B this year, and if numbers are to be believed, China’s total manufacturing capacity of laser communications terminals will probably be several thousand this year. Lasers are an example of a relatively noncompetitive area in China until recently.
Unlike, say, rocket engines, there were few state-owned enterprises in China building space lasers a few years ago. Combine this with the practical uses for laser comms technology, we’ve seen a stream of entrepreneurs starting laser comms companies, seeing an opportunity in addressing a niche that the state does not yet address.
Other areas include next-generation thrusters, on-board computing, rocket servo systems, and other upstream technologies that have seen an influx of money and interest. In the coming few years, we expect overcapacity in China’s space sector, with this leading to increased emphasis on export markets to absorb excess capacity.
Funding: The Biggest Year Ever by Far
If launch was a bit of a disappointment in 2024, funding most certainly was not. This year saw nearly ¥20B (~$2.8B) invested into commercial space companies, easily topping the previous best year ever (2020 at ~¥12B). The figure for 2024 was roughly double the annual average for fundraising for 2019-2023.