China's Response to Starlink: H1 2025 Updates

Plus a GEO relay satellite announcement from my old stomping grounds, high-precision propulsion systems for on-orbit servicing, and a whole lot more

Dear Readers,

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, and happy Sunday. Welcome to the couple hundred new subscribers that have joined since the last Monitor, great to have you here. As with every monthly, we’ll start with a deep-dive article and then move into some headlines from the month. Before doing so, a quick reminder that the China Space Monitor is the tip of a very deep iceberg, and that over at Orbital Gateway Consulting, we have tens of thousands of data points and a growing library of deep-dive reports available for purchase or subscription. Reach out for more info. And without further ado, this month’s feature on the state of China’s versions of Starlink.

China’s Response to Starlink: Orderly Breather or Starting to Sputter?

We’ve covered China’s two non-geostationary communications constellations (NGSOs) extensively here, namely China SatNet (中国卫星网络) and their Guowang constellation and SpaceSail (垣信卫星) and their Thousand Sails constellation. The 40,000-foot narrative has largely been, China SatNet has the Golden Ticket from the Central Government to deploy a Chinese NGSO, and has done not much with that ticket since establishment in early 2021, while SpaceSail is the pluckier upstart with major backing from the Shanghai Government and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Both projects have now deployed a non-trivial number of satellites, with SpaceSail having launched 90 across 5 batches since August 2024, and SatNet having launched 34 production satellites across 4 batches, along with ~a dozen vaguely-named test satellites over a handful of launches. And while both projects have picked up momentum over the past ~12 months for different reasons, both are undergoing some apparent challenges and changes now, begging the question: is this an orderly re-assessment, or are these projects facing deeper challenges? Let’s dig in.

SpaceSail: All Quiet on the Eastern Front

In October 2023, SpaceSail roared out of the gate when MIIT published the “Opinions on Innovating the Management of Information and Communications Industry to Optimize the Business Environment”, which included a line about the orderly opening up of the satellite internet domain. This gave SpaceSail, and their backers, the green light from one of the most powerful regulators in China, and within weeks Shanghai and the Chinese Academy of Sciences had pumped $1B into the project.

By August 2024, the first batch of Thousand Sails satellites was launched, and since then we have seen 4 more batches of 18 satellites launched. Not only that, but up until the 5th batch, launched in March 2025, the time between launches was steadily declining, from 70 days between batches 1 & 2 to 48 days between batches 4 & 5.

At the same time, SpaceSail was wheeling and dealing commercially, signing MoUs in Brazil, Malaysia, and Thailand, while also conducting application tests for maritime in Hong Kong and setting up a subsidiary in Kazakhstan.

But not all has been coming up roses for the Thousand Sails constellation. Soon after the launch of the 2nd batch, Chinese media began reporting that the satellites were experiencing orbit-raising issues, evident from their observable altitude. The second batch was the first to be built by new manufacturer Genesat (格思航天), a partial spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites (上海微小卫星创新研究院), leading to speculation that the manufacturer (and newish commercial suppliers) were experiencing growing pains.

Following the Batch 2 issues, we saw a pause in Genesat satellite launches, with more experienced Thousand Sails prime Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites sending their satellites into orbit on launches 3 and 4 in December and January, respectively. The 5th launch of Thousand Sails satellites in March 2025 marked the return of Genesat, and these satellites have seemingly made it to their targeted orbit of ~1,060-1,085km.

And since then? Largely silence from Thousand Sails, and a substantial uptick in time between launches to >100 days. Their upcoming 6th launch should be a batch of satellites built by Genesat, which begs the question of whether the previous batch met performance requirements other than just making it to the correct orbit.

Conversations I’ve had with players in the Chinese space sector have been mixed, but quite a few of them have concluded that the performance of Thousand Sails satellites has been worse than expected, leading to the possibility of finding new suppliers for key systems, re-testing certain systems or components, or otherwise delaying further launches until these glitches are ironed out.

In the meantime, SpaceSail has been quieter in terms of MoUs and announcements, with nothing substantive since their April 2025 MoU with NT. I saw with my own eyes a sizable SpaceSail delegation strolling the halls of the Asia Tech X Singapore Expo in late May, but with no announcements coming afterwards, it was either not a fruitful event for them, or they are keeping things on the down-low to an extent that they were not just a few months ago. The company also had a large booth at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Shanghai in mid-June, but as of yet have not announced anything from that show.

In any case, a few things are clear about SpaceSail:

1) Time between launches has crept up from 48 days between No’s 4 and 5, to 109 days (as of 29 June) since launch 5.

2) They have been quiet with regard to international agreements, application tests, and other announcements for a couple of months.

3) Prime manufacturer Genesat is experiencing growing pains, but is still going full-speed ahead with building a second satellite factory before the first one is fully up and running.

China SatNet: Leadership Shake-Up at the SOE

China SatNet is a very different beast from SpaceSail. A state-owned enterprise fully owned by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), SatNet is a politically-motivated project staffed by largely former SOE employees and run like an SOE. It is less public-facing than SpaceSail, and so we get less news directly from them, but recent changes at the company are worthy of interpretation.

The first big changes at China SatNet came in January this year, when China Telecom Group General Manager Liang Baojun was parachuted into China SatNet just a few months after his appointment to the top position at the enormous China Telecom Group. At the time, Chinese media noted that the move “came very suddenly, and no one from China Telecom Group or the three major operators were prepared”. The addition of Liang to SatNet seemed like an attempt to encourage future synergies between China’s big three state-owned telcos and the big state-owned NGSO project.

It turns out, it was just a precursor of what was to come. Earlier this month, we saw a couple more moves among SatNet leadership. First, the company’s Chairman and Legal Representative was changed from Zhang Dongchen, who has been the face of the company within China since their establishment, to Gou Ping, a former manager at the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and the 29th Institute of CETC. At the time, Chinese media noted that “the industry has complained about the slow progress of SatNet’s's LEO Internet constellation. We will wait and see whether the new leadership can respond to industry expectations”.

Just a couple of weeks later, SatNet announced even more changes, with 5 directors stepping down and 3 new ones being appointed. The three new directors are the aforementioned Liang Baojun, Mou Xiangjun of SASTIND and CASIC, and Gao Chunlei, formerly of China Telecom and China Tower.

This January change in General Manager, and June change in Chairman and directors, mean that China SatNet has a completely new leadership team, and one that comes largely from 1) the telco world, and 2) the central government. They are also ~a decade younger than the previous leadership team on average, with SatNet evolving from one run by male Han Chinese Party members in their early-mid 60s to one run by male Han Chinese Party members in their early-mid 50s.

As a result, we should expect a few changes at SatNet. First, the appointment of Gou Ping from SASAC should allow them to more closely align with other centrally-controlled SOEs. We saw this trend start to emerge in April 2024 with the establishment of China Space Time Group, a ¥4B JV between SatNet, military supplier NORINCO, and China Mobile. Moving forward, we might see JVs emerge aiming to serve other largely state-run industries including airlines, oil & gas companies, and shipping/maritime companies.

Second, we should expect closer alignment between SatNet and the telco world. Liang Baojun was at the top echelons of China Telecom before his move to SatNet, and two of the other new directors come from telcos/tower companies. This is a natural fit, and could also mean that for more commercial entities like Huawei and ZTE, partnering with SpaceSail is now the more realistic option.

Conclusions

China’s two NGSO communications constellations have had a wobbly Q2 2025 in their own unique ways. SpaceSail has seen technical difficulties with their early satellites lead to a pause in launches, while the powers that be have seemingly grown tired of SatNet’s inaction and ordered a leadership shakeup.

Both projects are long-term oriented and well-financed by powerful backers, meaning that this is likely a speed bump rather than a serious roadblock, however the challenges being faced by these two companies today belie some of the broader challenges facing Chinese space companies.

The industry is still tightly state-controlled, and even though commercial companies are sprouting up like my much-loved wooden ear mushrooms, things need to proceed in an orderly and stability-oriented way in China. And while commercial suppliers have made rapid and impressive progress, things can still malfunction on-orbit, and this risk is exacerbated when you are moving as quickly as SpaceSail was moving.

Only time will tell how these changes shake out, but in the immediate term we can be sure that China’s NGSO constellations are an evolving beast, and that what is true today may not be true in 6 or 12 months.

And in other news from this month

Commercial on-orbit servicing company SpaceRobot (国宇星辰) profiled their high-precision propulsion system that was launched into orbit onboard the Xingjiyuan-1 satellite on 21 May and tested on 10 June. During the test, the propulsion system allowed the spacecraft to “implement continuous orbit change actions for 30 seconds, successfully reducing the orbit height by 300 meters, and with a power consumption of only 10W”.

High-precision propulsion system from SpaceRobot

A nice summary piece of the different China SatNet launches (both the standardized batch launches and test launches), in particular highlighting the rockets that they’ve used. The author attributes 13 “Satellite Internet Test Satellites” to China SatNet, in addition to the less ambiguous 34 production satellites that have been launched in 4 batches.

CASIC’s Wuhan National Aerospace Industrial Base, a megaproject that has gone through fits and starts depending on who is in the Chairman’s seat at CASIC, got a vote of confidence with the Hubei Province General Secretary Wang Zhonglin visiting and calling on the company to “build a China Space Valley with National Influence”. For those in the industry for awhile, you’ll remember the Hongyun (虹云) and Xingyun (行云) constellations, both planned by CASIC to be built at their Wuhan satellite factory, and both petering out after just 1-2 test satellites launched in the late 2010s. The new trendy project by CASIC is the Chutian (楚天) constellation, which calls for hundreds of satellites to be launched into VLEO. That would surely keep the factory humming for a couple of years at least.

The Dier-5 commercial spacecraft departed AZSpace’s (紫微科技) Wuxi factory on 22 June and is heading to a launch site for an August 2025 launch onboard a Kuaizhou rocket. AZSpace have established themselves as one of China’s leading commercial spacecraft manufacturers, having launched their first Dier spacecraft onboard an iSpace rocket in 2023, and attempted a second one onboard an ill-fated CAS Space Lijian-1A rocket last December.

Envisaged AZSpace commercial cargo spacecrafts

GEO/MEO relay satellite project Cangyu Space (苍宇天基) was the star of the show at the Shenzhen Space Industry Conference, held in my old stomping grounds of Luohu District. The biggest nugget of info by far was the company signing a contract with CGWIC and CAST for a GEO relay satellite to be positioned at 144.6E. Using the smallish DFH-3E platform, the satellite is the first of a planned 12-13 for Cangyu Space, who aim to build a constellation of relay satellites to allow LEO satellites to more efficiently get data back to the ground from far-flung places.

Cangyu Space Co-Founder and EVP Liu Hanchao discussing their first GEO satellite

Laser comms and optical payload manufacturer Remo-Telight (星遥光宇) announced a Pre-A funding round, with money largely coming from the city of Changzhou and province of Jiangsu via government investment vehicles. The company plans to use the funding to advance their laser comms efforts and branch into remote sensing equipment and other products.

And a few notable updates of international collaboration, including:

Galaxy Space (银河航天) signed a “Memorandum of Intent for Cooperation” with the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), which calls for collaboration in areas such as satellite development, capacity building, and satellite services.

Just a couple of weeks after hosting a delegation from the UAE’s Ajman, ADA Space (国星宇航) welcomed a delegation from Malaysia that included the country’s Minster of Science, Technology, and Innovation. The parties discussed plans to “accelerate the expansion and promotion” of ADA Space’s Three Body Computing Constellation in Malaysia.

And finally, drama continued in Czechia a couple of months after Chinese TT&C company Emposat (航天驭星) was denied the right to build a ground station there by the government. This month saw Emposat’s former Czech partner Pekasat announce that they were “terminating the antenna hosting services and dismantling the 7.3m diameter parabolic antenna system”. For those in the market for a ground station site, Pekasat noted that the former Emposat site is “thus prepared for the next customer. If you are interested, let us know”.

And on that happy note, we wrap up for the month. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and see you in a few weeks!

Blaine