China raises entry fees to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink as G60 mega-constellation satellites roll off Shanghai production line

China’s second low-Earth satellite mega-constellation to provide broadband internet services went into production in Shanghai on Wednesday, as the space technology industry moves to explore its potential and competition from SpaceX Inc.’s Starlink intensifies. started.

The digital production factory located in the G60 Starlink Industrial Base, which focuses on the production and application of commercial satellites and is supported by the Shanghai municipal government, produced its first commercial satellite on Wednesday, according to authorities in Shanghai’s Songjiang District. .

According to the district government, the factory plans to launch and operate at least 108 satellites by 2024, provide initial commercial services, and build a complete industrial chain that can compete globally by 2027. .

The factory is expected to have the production capacity of 300 satellites a year, said Cao Jin, general manager of Shanghai Gesi Aviation Technology, a state-owned company set up in 2022 to operate the G60 Starlink factory.

With the factory’s mass production capacity, the time required to manufacture one satellite will be reduced from about two to three months to one and a half days, Cao added.

But this schedule is still lower than SpaceX’s Starlink production rate of six satellites per day.

China is stepping up efforts to foster a commercial satellite market that is expected to play a key role in frontier technology amid intensifying competition with the United States.

The 12,000-satellite G60 Starlink project, along with the 13,000-satellite Guo Wang national network currently under construction, is widely seen as China’s answer to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Is China’s rapidly developing aerospace information industry ready for takeoff?

The G60 Starlink project was launched in 2016, and the Shanghai government announced the cluster plan in 2021.

As of July, the local government announced it would send about 1,300 satellites into orbit in the initial stages of the project.

G60 is the name of a highway that passes through several manufacturing cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, one of China’s economic powerhouses.

It includes high-tech manufacturers such as remote sensing technology, big data, computing centers and quantum communications companies.

The G60 mega-constellation is also a key link in the aerospace information industry, with an industrial chain that includes satellites, data application services, artificial intelligence, and deep learning that supports the processing of vast amounts of data captured by satellites.

China’s aerospace information industry is expected to reach 44.69 billion yuan (US$6.26 billion) in 2025, up from 29.3 billion yuan in 2021, according to an August study by China Fortune Securities.

According to the report, the aerospace information industry accounted for 73% share of the global commercial space market, reaching approximately USD 384 billion in 2022.