Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Ep.10 (30th Nov. - 6th Dec. 2020)

12/06/20 • 19 min

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from this week include:
1) Chang’e-5 Lunar Return Mission
Following up on last week’s discussion on Chang’e-5 launch, which occurred on 24 November, this week we bring news of Chang’e-5’s arrival on the Moon.
If we pick up where we left off last weekend on the 29th of November, Chang’e 5 had just inserted itself into orbit around the moon. Since then, the lander has detached and performed an autonomous landing at the landing site, in the area called the Sea of Storms.
The lander then had 48 hours to select the area to drill, perform the drilling, and the sample was then scooped up and stored in the ascent vehicle. All of this was performed successfully on the 2nd of December.
The lander also had the opportunity to take a number of stunning images, with an unprecedented resolution for moon pictures. It also took a snapshot of the Chinese flag held by an extension arm.
On the 4th of December, the ascent module lifted off successfully, leaving the lander on the moon, and which has no further purpose. The ascent module then deployed its solar panels and docked successfully on the 6th of December.
2) Charming Globe Completes a Massive RMB 2.4 Billion Pre-IPO Round of Funding
Chinese EO satellite manufacturer and constellation operator Charming Globe announced a RMB 2.46 billion (US$375M) round of funding on 1 December. The round is considered the company’s “pre-IPO” round, and thus implies that Charming Globe will likely IPO in the near-term. This should be interesting to watch, particularly 1) what do their financials look like, and 2) whether they IPO in Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Star Board. Most recently, a company representative noted earlier this year that the company’s 2019 revenues were around RMB 100M. This is somewhat astonishing when comparing these two numbers--
This represents the single largest funding round by a Chinese commercial space company. Charming Globe is arguably China’s leading EO satellite manufacturer. The company is a CAS spinoff, HQed in Changchun, Jilin province, and to now already has 20+ satellites in orbit, many of which have been launched by Kuaizhou rockets.
The company has plans for 60x EO satellites in its first phase constellation, and 138x EO satellites in its second phase constellation. Noteworthily, CGSTL’s satellites are primarily optical, due to the fact that the company is a spinoff from the CAS Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics. The company has announced some initiatives for SAR and hyperspectral, and this funding may also help develop these technologies.
Charming Globe is noteworthy for being one of several “hybrids” in China, which is to say, a commercial company that has some affiliation with the state. In the case of CGSTL, the company is a spinoff from CAS, but has a rather unusual shareholder structure.
3) Recommended article on Yaogan
From around 1.5 weeks ago, an excellent article from a French aerospace/space blog about China’s recent Yaogan launch, and the constellation more generally. The article gives some interesting insights on the strategic importance of Yaogan, what it might be used for, and what we might expect in the future from China in terms of signal intelligence and EO. The article also includes some excellent data visualization and is preceded by a couple of related articles on Yaogan by the same author.
We thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!
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Previous Episode

Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Ep.9 (23rd - 29th Nov. 2020)

Welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! In this week's episode we bring you:
1) Chang’e-5 Lunar Return Mission
Tuesday morning (24/11 Beijing time) saw the launch of Chang’e-5 at Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan. The launch was a success, and represents China’s first lunar sample-return mission. It is also the first sample-return mission since the Soviet Luna 24 mission in 1976. After a number of maneuvers in its Earth-Moon trajectory, the spacecraft successfully entered lunar orbit.
2) China Satcom replacing older broadcast satellites
An article by Satellite World revealed that China Satcom would be replacing a number of older broadcast satellites in 2021-2023. All satellites would be purchased from CAST, and based on the DFH-4E platform. The satellites would launch on LM-3B, China’s current workhorse for GEO. The transaction was said to reach 3,918 billion RMB (approx 600 million USD).
Below is a list of the satellites:
Chinasat 6D (to replace 6A; C & Ku band payloads)
Chinasat 6E (to replace 6B; C & Ku band payloads)
Chinasat 9B (to replace 9A; Ku BSS band payloads)
In addition, the Chinasat 26 (Ka band) satellite will be a welcome addition to the currently operational Chinasat-16, the Shijian-20, and the future Chinasat-19.
3) The Trump Administration could blacklist 89 companies with “military ties”
According to Reuters, the Trump administration is preparing to blacklist 89 Chinese companies, including a large number of major aviation companies such as COMAC (building the C919) and the aerospace conglomerate AVIC. U.S. suppliers will ”need special licenses to sell a broad set of commercially available items to such companies” according to the piece by Reuters.
Are we heading towards a “post-Cox Report” situation for aviation as well?
If this blacklist is made official and effective before the Biden administration take-over, this could lead to a total disruption of the civil aviation industry in China. The blacklist bears a strong resemblance to the restrictions US space companies faced when selling to China, after the Cox Report in 1998. The consequences on both sides would be more massive for aviation:
- China is no small market to Boeing. It represents 20% of the entire global commercial aviation market, and where Boeing is a dominant player alongside Airbus.
- The disruption would be devastating for the Chinese civil aviation market. While China’s local supply chain has grown tremendously, it still depends heavily on non-Chinese suppliers. Aircraft like the C919 are likely to come to a full stop.
4) CASIC Methalox Engine
Expace released photos of its Mingfeng methalox engine earlier this week. The engine completed a systems-level hot test, with the test verifying the integrity of the engine system, thrust chamber, combustor, turbo pump, valve, and final assembly.
Expace is more famous up to this point for having developed the KZ-1A fast-response solid rocket. With the KZ-1A, Expace has built a pretty reliable, fast-response rocket that can be deployed using a transporter erector launcher.
5) World 5G Convention in Guangzhou
The World 5G Convention opened in Guangzhou last week. During the Convention, the Chief Designer of BeiDou 3rd Generation, Yang Changfeng, noted that all core components of BeiDou-3 were being manufactured domestically. Yang also noted that around 80% of phones in China are now equipped with BeiDou-3 chip sets. Yang linked BeiDou-3 with 5G by noting that many elements of 5G will rely on highly precise location data.
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Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Ep.11 (7th - 13th Dec. 2020)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Our sincere apologies for the late upload of this episode, due to technical issues. Without further ado, the news update from the week of 7-13 December.
1) iSpace making progress in the development of Hyperbola 2
iSpace announced that they had completed the production of the fuel tank for the Hyperbola-2 rocket. The company’s Hyperbola-2 will use liquid methalox fuel, and is China’s first common bulkhead fuel tank for rockets above 3m diameter.
iSpace also completed a week earlier a series of supersonic wind tunnel tests for the vertical landing phase, a crucial moment of the flight with complex aerodynamics and instability.
2) Launch of Long March 11 with 2 CAS satellites
Last week, China saw a launch of a Long March 11 rocket, the 3rd launch of such a rocket in China in 2020. This launch received less cover overall, as it concurred with the Chang’e 5 hype that was taking place at the same time.
This launch of LM-11 took place at Xichang on the 9th of December, and put into orbit 2 smallsats of the GECAM mission (aka Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-Sky Monitor), and initiated by the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing.
Designated KX-08A and KX-08B, each satellite will embark a number of instruments to detect gamma/x wave bursts in the universe.
3) Great article on C919 Suppliers
The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank based in DC, published on Dec. 7 a good piece on the Chinese commercial aviation industry, and notably on the poor performance of COMAC, from both an industrial and technical point of view.
According to CSIS, while China admittedly has done admirably in turning itself into a high-tech superpower in a number of industries, commercial aviation is not part of them.
To justify this point, CSIS points to some of the recurring problems of COMAC, including:
- The poor performance of COMAC A/C
- The significant delays that the programs have experienced
- The poor industrial productivity (based on the annual production rate)
- The troubles with certification
- And its reliance on foreign suppliers
All in all, a great piece that we recommend to our viewers, although admittedly we feel that in some areas the paper is overly pessimistic/negative about Chinese commercial aerospace.
4) National Radio and Television Administration Announcement
China’s NRTA announced this week plans for modernization of the country’s broadcast sector. This includes several key phrases, namely “smart business”, “UltraHD/4K”, and also “Satellite internet/converged two-way services” (融合双向业务).
The announcement also hits on the convergence of TV and internet access, that is, most TV can be delivered via internet access. Other points of note in the announcement included a call to build a cloud platform for satellite broadcast (建设直播卫星云平台), and to develop “two-way communications” for satellite broadcast that allow for things like online shopping, smart homes, and digitization of small towns.
Overall, the announcement should be taken as an indication that China wants to modernize its relatively archaic linear broadcast industry.
5) Dongfang Hour reaches 100+ subscribers!
Last but not least, the Dongfang Hour channel has reached 100+ subscribers this week, with a 10% jump in the last few days. While this remains a modest figure, we would like to address a big thanks to our viewers for their support, and hope to bring more valuable content on Chinese aerospace and tech in 2021!
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Follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter (https://twitter.com/DongFangHour), as an audio podcast, and on our official website: https://www.dongfanghour.com/