Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Ep.1 (28th Sept. - 4th Oct. 2020)

10/08/20 • 15 min

Hello, and thanks for stopping by the Dongfang Hour! Today, we are pleased to introduce a new initiative from the DFH, namely the China Aero and Space Weekly News Roundup. The Roundup will act as a ~15mins per week supplement to our more in-depth ~60min ~monthly discussions on various Chinese aerospace and space industry topics. Updates from this week:
An article from independent Chinese space media source “小火箭“ (“Small Rocket”) detailed massively expanded plans for China’s LEO broadband constellations. The article was removed soon after publication, and we cannot verify the authenticity of the plans. However, 小火箭 is a known media source in the industry, and we believe the article was likely more than unsubstantiated rumors. The constellation plans to have nearly 13,000 satellites across 7 “sub-constellations”.
Shaanxi Zhongtian Rocket Company completed its IPO on the Shenzhen stock exchange. The company has seen its share price increase by the 10% limit every day since IPO, though this week the market has been closed due to National Holiday/”Golden Week”.
A fairing from a Long March-5B launch that occurred in May 2020 washed up on the beach in Hong Kong. Local media had a field day with (incorrect, I have been told) speculation about the risks of contamination.
An excellent Space Cafe talk hosted by SpaceWatch.Global, and featuring Dr. Bhavya Lal of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) on the topic of Chinese commercial space.
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Previous Episode

Episode 4 - Discussing Chinese Satcom Constellations with Lan Tianyi

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Dongfang Hour. This week, we invite our very first guest to the podcast to discuss satellite constellations, and what a guest!
LAN Tianyi is the CEO of Ultimate Blue Nebula and SpaceKey, two Beijing-based firms focusing on satellite/space industry consulting & research. Having spent several years working inside China’s state-owned space apparatus (largely at CAST and its subsidiaries), Tianyi branched off on his own in 2014, and has since been consulting with many of China’s most successful and dynamic commercial space companies. Today, in addition to his two companies, Tianyi is actively involved in the China Satellite Conference, an annual event in Beijing, as well as Satellite World, a Chinese satellite news publication.
On today’s episode, we discuss communications constellations. This year has seen a significant acceleration in the rollout of western low Earth orbit (LEO) communications constellations, with the most obvious example being Starlink. Less publicly, Chinese constellation projects have made steady progress throughout the year, and while we are unlikely to see any Chinese constellation with hundreds of satellites in orbit by year-end, there is much to discuss about these projects.
Some key takeaways:
The biggest constellation projects in China are Hongyan, Xingyun, and Hongyun, all of which are being developed by state-owned enterprises. Given the business model of broadband constellations (ISP from space), and given the degree of control that the Chinese government exercises over the internet, it is highly likely that the country’s first broadband constellation will be managed by SOEs.
That being said, a number of private companies have entered the fray, with oftentimes rapidly evolving business models. This includes Commsat, Galaxy Space, MinoSpace, and others. These private companies have different focuses, but most aim to address a piece of the constellation puzzle. Commsat wants to mass-manufacture smallsats for large constellations, MinoSpace has a similar plan, with both companies having much “space” in their DNA. Galaxy Space, on the other hand, has a leadership team that comes from a more general tech/telecommunications background, and as such, is working on developing applications related to 5G and IoT.
The private companies and SOEs have found a common ally in local and provincial governments in China. Following the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)’s announcement supporting satellite broadband as a “new infrastructure” in China, several provincial and city governments doubled down on their efforts to bring satellite broadband companies to their jurisdiction. This included Galaxy Space announcing a “superfactory” in Nantong and Commsat announcing factories in Yibin (Sichuan) and Tangshan (Hebei).
China’s constellations are closely linked with other initiatives, such as the Belt & Road Spatial Information Corridor, the “New Infrastructure” projects, etc.
Finally, we also expect constellation projects with highly specific target markets to be more open to private companies—for example, Geely’s plan for a constellation to provide enhanced navigation, implicitly to Geely cars, is seen as less controversial than plans to become an “ISP from space”.
Sources of interest are available on our website.
Thanks for tuning in!
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Next Episode

Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Ep.2 (5th - 11th Oct. 2020)

Disclaimer initially--it’s a slow week on account of holiday. Also, happy holidays everyone! Be sure to check out our Longjiang-2 satellite image of the moon/earth that we posted on 1 October.
This week's news update includes:
OneSpace C-round of funding. Company announced the funding round in early-September, but did it quite quietly. We just heard about it this week. It’s a C round of an undisclosed amount, with the investors being Liangjiang Investment Fund, Zhengxuan Investment, HIT Robotics Fund, and Huijin Capital → most which are already previous investors, showing continued confidence of the core investors.
- It also represents the latest example of a trend of involvement of regional and provincial governments, which we highlighted in an upcoming ESPI report (plug for ESPI report), as Liangjiang Group (两江集团)of Chongqing is an investor this round, and OneSpace has officially relocated their HQ to Chongqing. Interesting stuff.
Apstar-6D reached its orbital slot this week. Satellite represents an interesting business case--large payload of interesting capacity; Ku-band HTS broadly over APAC with emphasis on mobility routes. Satellite will be operated primarily by APT Mobile Satcom of Shenzhen, but probably some cooperation from APT Satellite of Hong Kong, and by extension. It’s interesting because APSATCOM now kind of puts APT Satellite into competition with ChinaSat, even though ChinaSat owns a big piece of APT Satellite, and thus also of APSATCOM.
Upcoming conferences:

CCAF 2020: 19-20 October
China Satellite conference 2020: 28-30 October

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