Henry Boyd, Erik Green, Meia Nouwens
China’s commercial space sector has proliferated over the last decade thanks to political prioritisation and extensive venture-capital funding. Whilst it has not yet fulfilled Beijing’s aim of surpassing the US as a space power, this industry is now a key strength for China.
In 2014, China’s State Council published ‘Document 60’, which opened its space sector to private investment. This decision aimed to establish China as the world’s leading technological and space power by using the private sector to overcome the restraints on innovation and capacity experienced in a state space sector dominated by two state-owned enterprises (SOEs): the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). The success of SpaceX as a commercial launch provider in the United States and the potential military utility of its Starlink satellite internet constellation have subsequently added additional urgency to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) decision to develop China’s commercial space sector.
Although the immediate growth of the sector after 2014 was slow and mainly driven by spin-offs from SOEs such as Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGSTL), by the late 2010s the number of commercial companies developing satellites and rocket technology had grown significantly. Today, over 500 commercial space companies exist in China. The increased role of local governments in the sector, utilising financial measures such as loan discounts and venture-capital funds, closely resembles China’s other high-tech and advanced manufacturing sectors. This hybrid of national and local state involvement with bottom-up innovation and profit-making motivations has created a commercial space sector that is currently more diverse, but less mature than its American equivalent.
Launch cadenceAccording to data compiled by astronomer and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, China’s new commercial rockets have contributed to a more than threefold increase in annual successful orbital launches between 2015 and 2024. The majority of these launches, however, are still conducted by variants of CASC’s Long March rocket family.
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