Since 2019, Elon Musk and SpaceX have been spearheading the creation of broadband satellite Internet services. As of May 2023, the Starlink constellation consisted of more than 4,000 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and approximately 1.5 million subscribers worldwide. A few competitors started launching constellations a few years before Starlink did, and several companies have sprung up since then. This includes HughesNet, OneWeb and Amazon’s Kuiper Systems. But Starlink’s latest competitor may be the toughest: a company in China backed by the Beijing government!

On Sunday, July 9, a prototype Internet satellite was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia, China, with a Long March 2C launch vehicle. Since then, the satellite has entered a specific orbit where it will conduct several tests to validate its broadband satellite technology. The long-term goal of the project is to build an array of 13,000 satellites codenamed “Guo Wang”, meaning “state network”, reflecting Beijing’s vision of taking a government share of the satellite Internet market.

The project was created by the China State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees China’s largest state-owned enterprises and is managed by China’s SatNet. According to documents submitted to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the company plans to create two bands (GW-A59 and GW-2) with coverage of 37.5 to 42.5 GHz (from space to Earth) and 47.2 to 51.4. plans. GHz (Earth to Space). The grouping, according to multiple sources, is part of China’s effort to lay claim to the growing satellite Internet market.

Grand View Research, Inc. The satellite Internet market was valued at US$8.23 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach US$22.57 billion in 2030 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.6. %. The number of worldwide satellite internet users increased from 43 million (about 1% of global internet users) in 2020 and is expected to reach 110 million (about 1.4% of global users) by the end of the decade. Despite its successes, Starlink’s market share is only around 3.5% and future growth is expected to come from developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

The Chinese government opened the satellite Internet market to private investment in 2014, and nearly two dozen projects have been launched since then. This includes GalaxySpace, China’s first satellite internet developer, with $1.5 billion in funding last year from venture capital firms and in part from the government-led China International Capital Corporation (CICC). A similar trend is seen around the world, where governments provide substantial funding to satellite Internet companies to provide broadband services to underserved markets.

China has undertaken several ambitious programs in recent years. This includes the establishment of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the South Pole-Aitken Basin to compete with the Artemis program. There’s also China’s stealth spaceplane, rivaling the US space forces’ X-37B, which returned to Earth a few months after spending 276 days in orbit. They also have to set up landing platforms at sea, begin developing the Long March-9 superheavy rocket, and offer to send crewed missions to Mars from 2033 (just like NASA).

And as the latest developments show, China wants to make its presence felt in the commercial space sector as well. Besides satellite internet services, they are also working on reusable rockets and have hinted at reusable rockets like Starship and Super Heavy. According to China’s way of working, this process seems to be open to the public and the private sector is fulfilling the tasks and targets set by the government. Source