Closer Russian and Chinese ties for Lunar Exploration, Geely's Satellite Factory getting the Green Light, and a New Report on Chinese Space - Weekly News Roundup Ep 21

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! Without further ado, the news update from the week of 22 - 28 Feb.
1) Xi Jinping and very high level delegation visits Chang’e 5 expo at the Great Hall of the People
On February 22nd, Xi Jinping visited an exhibition on the Chinese lunar mission Chang’e 5, which successfully completed its sample return mission earlier this year. President Xi toured the exhibition, made a speech, and there was a group picture.
While this may seem like an ordinary event, there are several noteworthy points the unpack here:
- First and foremost, it’s been a while since Xi Jinping has held a public event in support of the space industry. The last one was 2 years ago for Chang’e 4, and I believe before that it was in 2016 when XJP met up with the crew of Shenzhou 11.
- The delegation that accompanied President Xi was also high profile: present were the entire standing committee of the Politburo, in other words the 6 most powerful people in China after Xi Jinping. This included Premier Li Keqiang.
- Lastly, there were also former leading chief designers and leaders that had played a key role in the space industry: Sun Jiadong and Luan Enjie. Put together, it was a big part of the space team and Chinese leadership put together in one room (as seen in picture in video).
2) CNSA officially validates the Long March 9 in the Chinese space program
Wu Yanhua, the deputy director of CNSA, stated that the development of the Long March 9 had been officially confirmed, with its main objective being crewed missions to the Moon and to Mars.
LM9 is China’s hypothetical super heavy rocket, and had loosely been in the pipeline for many many years, the first hints going back all the way to 2010. And what China has done mostly since then is to explore multiple configurations for the rocket. At first China considered a configuration with a hydrolox first stage with 4 solid fueled side boosters, and a hydrolox second stage. But rapidly the Chinese design teams swapped the solid fueled side boosters and the hydrolox first stage for kerolox engines.
It would be available in 3 configurations, LM9 (140t LEO), LM9A (100t LEO) and LM9B (50t LEO).
3) Takeaways from Future Space’s 2020 Investment Report
A comprehensive report published by Chinese space industry think-tank and event planner FutureSpace. A few main takeaways:
Similar to data published by Euroconsult, we saw 2020 actually surpass 2019 in Chinese space sector funding, despite a significant drop in the number of funding rounds. In short: fewer, bigger rounds, and consequently, some degree of concentration of funds among the top several startups in their respective verticals.
We also saw a change in the type of funding. In 2020, we only saw RMB 350 million going into seed rounds, angel rounds, or Pre-A rounds. This 350 million was out of a total space industry funding of RMB 9 billion in 2020, according to the report. So, very early-stage rounds represented ~4% of total funding for Chinese space companies in 2020.
We also saw “strategic investment” rounds occupy a large share of total funding, at more than half. This is not particularly surprising given that “strategic investment” rounds often involve large investors and more mature companies. That said, these types of rounds tend not to be as specific about the amount of funding raised, which probably means 1) there is some degree of estimation in FA’s figures for strategic investment rounds, and that 2) this may be a big piece of the delta between FA and EC’s figures.
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