One of China’s big satellite constellations appears in troubleAccording to a report in China’s state-run press today, one of the giant satellite constellations China is building to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is in trouble, and will likely fail to meet its international licensing requirement to place more than six hundred satellites in orbit by the end of 2025.
Only 90 satellites have been launched into low Earth orbit for the Qianfan broadband network – also known as the Thousand Sails Constellation or G60 Starlink – well short of the project’s goal of 648 by the end of this year.
Under international regulations to prevent spectrum hoarding, satellite operators must deploy a certain proportion of their constellation within set times after securing orbits and radio frequencies.
Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology, the company leading the project, plans to deploy more than 15,000 satellites by 2030 to deliver direct-to-phone internet services worldwide.
To meet its license requirement, it require a launch pace for the rest of ’25 of about 30 satellites per month, something that the article says is unlikely due to “a severe shortage of rockets” in China.
This story might also explain why China’s government yesterday ordered all its rocket pseudo-companies to speed up their test schedules, pushing to launch their new rockets for the first time this year instead of in 2026. The Xi government’s order appears to be trying to address this rocket shortage.
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The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to a report in China’s state-run press today, one of the giant satellite constellations China is building to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is in trouble, and will likely fail to meet its international licensing requirement to place more than six hundred satellites in orbit by the end of 2025.
Only 90 satellites have been launched into low Earth orbit for the Qianfan broadband network – also known as the Thousand Sails Constellation or G60 Starlink – well short of the project’s goal of 648 by the end of this year.
Under international regulations to prevent spectrum hoarding, satellite operators must deploy a certain proportion of their constellation within set times after securing orbits and radio frequencies.
Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology, the company leading the project, plans to deploy more than 15,000 satellites by 2030 to deliver direct-to-phone internet services worldwide.
To meet its license requirement, it require a launch pace for the rest of ’25 of about 30 satellites per month, something that the article says is unlikely due to “a severe shortage of rockets” in China.
This story might also explain why China’s government yesterday ordered all its rocket pseudo-companies to speed up their test schedules, pushing to launch their new rockets for the first time this year instead of in 2026. The Xi government’s order appears to be trying to address this rocket shortage.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Whether or not the PRC ever succeeds in “competing” with Starlink is problematical but it seems to be successfully competing with Amazon’s Project Kuiper in the “slow race” to fail to meet deployment goals.
The new rockets whose development the regime is urging be speeded up are likely those that promise at least 1st-stage reusability. The PRC is discovering, as Amazon has before it and the Europeans – should they persist with plans for their IRIS2 constellation – will in future, that putting up a large satellite constellation on disposable rockets is a mug’s game doomed to failure.
In the meantime, confusion to the enemy.
I can just see the people building hardware at Space X saying “Rocket shortage!?! Not on MY watch!”. How lame is the chi-com government? Let me count the ways!
This news suits me just fine.
China is perhaps the most competent enemy the United States ever faced.
I really don’t care about the Uiygurs–after 9/11, we wanted to nuke Mecca and Medina.
I will give China this–they have no use for the Mohammedidian hordes.
We didn’t have the stomach to do what was needed.
I actually hope their Silk Road II ideas come to fruition for two reasons:
1.) Occupation will tax them financially
2.) With any luck–China prevails and no one is left on the planet who knows who Mohammad even was.
I admire their bloody-mindedness.
We lost ours
I try to follow real news out of China.
They are in real world trouble.
The economy has tanked totally, all the people outside the CCP leaders are essentially slaves.Half of the nations involved with the Belt and Road initiative are not paying back the cash loaned to them. And in some cases they are stopping China from removing minerals as payment either.
They had 1000 different electric car companies and 400 of them just went out of business. Just closed their doors overnight.
Nations are no longer allowing Chinese electric car sales in their nations because of quality problems.
The list goes on and on. If you think that a little inflation is a reason to riot try not being paid by your company at all, in a nation with NO social programs. None at all.
Homelessness might be as high as 20% over the whole of the population.
Their society is so broken that people are burning down the place they work at over less than 500 US dollars in back pay. Dozens of factories are being torched across China. A new fire almost every day.
Who is going to go in and stop China from launching anything they feel like at any time?
The UN?
Their word means nothing.