Chinese firms have signalled plans to launch more than 200,000 internet satellites, filing submissions with a UN agency just as Beijing criticised Elon Musk’s SpaceX for crowding shared orbital resources.
A dozen or so submissions from various Chinese satellite players were filed with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the end of December.
The biggest projects – CTC-1 and CTC-2 – were for 96,714 satellites each and filed by the newly established Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilisation and Technological Innovation.
01:11
SpaceX launches another test flight of its mega Starship rocket
SpaceX launches another test flight of its mega Starship rocket
The institute was registered in China’s northern Hebei provi…
Chinese firms have signalled plans to launch more than 200,000 internet satellites, filing submissions with a UN agency just as Beijing criticised Elon Musk’s SpaceX for crowding shared orbital resources.
A dozen or so submissions from various Chinese satellite players were filed with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the end of December.
The biggest projects – CTC-1 and CTC-2 – were for 96,714 satellites each and filed by the newly established Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilisation and Technological Innovation.
01:11
SpaceX launches another test flight of its mega Starship rocket
SpaceX launches another test flight of its mega Starship rocket
The institute was registered in China’s northern Hebei province on December 30, the day after it submitted its ITU filings, according to the Radio Association of China.
The United States and China have been racing to launch internet satellite megaconstellations in recent years, with the US-based SpaceX taking a big lead with its Starlink constellation, which accounts for most of the satellites in low Earth orbit.
But radio frequency spectrums and orbital slots in low Earth orbit are limited, and first movers for those resources can gain priority.
On January 9, the US Federal Communications Commission announced it had given SpaceX the green light to launch a further 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites.
Those satellites must be in orbit by the end of 2031 and would take SpaceX’s total to 15,000 satellites. Starlink had applied to the FCC to launch 30,000 satellites but a decision has been deferred on the rest.