China vows to catch up with Elon Musk’s Starlink

After tech mogul Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully caught its returning Super Heavy booster with a giant pair of mechanical “chopsticks” on October 13, Chinese state media have launched a campaign to promote China’s achievements in building its own Starlink-like system.

In China, at least three companies are trying to catch up with SpaceX’s Starlink, which aims to send 42,000 satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) in the coming decades. So far 6,426 Starlink satellites have been sent.

One of the trio is China Satellite Network Group Co, a Hebei-based state-owned-enterprise. It operates the GW plan, which refers to GuoWang or literally means “National Networks” in Chinese, and aims to build a Chinese version of Starlink with about 13,000 satellites.

Another one is Shanghai Weixiao Satellite Engineering Center, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Science. Its G60 or Qianfan plan aims to send 12,000 satellites to LEO by 2027.

The third one is Shanghai Lanjian Hongqing Technology Co, in which the Beijing-based LandSpace has a 48% stake. LandSpace is a private company founded by Zhang Changwu, a former official of the Ministry of Land and Resources. Lanjian Hongqing’s Honghu-3 plan will send 10,000 satellites to LEO.

“After seeing SpaceX’s successful launch on October 13, many foreign media have mocked China,” Lei Xiangping, a commentator with the state-owned China Central TV (CCTV), says in an opinion piece published on Thursday. ”Fortunately, China has already fought back in the following three days.”

Lei says China has flexed its muscles by sending 18 communication satellites for the Qianfan network via a Long March-6A rocket in Shanxi on Tuesday and launching the Gaofen-12 05 remote sensing satellite via a Long March-4C