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China applies to put 200K satellites in space after calling Starlink crash risk
https://archive.is/zPsmq https://archive.is/zPsmq
- nkurz 9mo agoI wasn't aware how far along some of these Chinese satellite networks were. There are several, and the number of satellites planned for them is astonishing. This article seems like a good intro to them, with comparisons to Starlink: https://archive.is/zPsmq https://archive.is/zPsmq
- kikkia 9mo agoDo take that article with a grain of salt as it is South China morning post. While in this article they do call out that recently the CCP was ridiculing Elon for taking up too much space, in space. So I can give them some credit on that. As for the state of these networks, G60/Qianfan had a plan of ~650 sattelites by the end of 2025, but currently sits at 108. They hope for ~1200 by the end of '27 Just before the end of the year the GuoWang constellation hit 136 of their planned 13,000. For reference starlink has launched over 10k satellites to date with ~9,400 in active service. Im sure the constellations will grow, but they have been experiencing the pains of scaling, especially with 1 use rockets. SCMP loves to pump up these crazy plans and massive numbers as a national pride win, even when they are not feasible or still really far off.
- jvanderbot 9mo agoFor reference, we have two internet sat providers based in USA (starlink and kuiper), and both have more than 100-200 satellites that you state for Chinese providers. If you add in EU providers, depending in how you count then, there's at least 2 or 3 providers who have more than 100 LEO satellites active.
- bicepjai 9mo agoAlready it’s getting hard to avoid noticing satellite trains when stargazing with the naked eye. If mega-constellations really scale into the hundreds of thousands, it feels like we’re on track to permanently degrade the night sky, even in places without much light pollution. With mega-constellation launches accelerating, the sci‑fi premise of imprisoning ourselves behind a debris field feels less fictional. This is essentially the collision-cascade risk described by Kessler Syndrome Kurzgesagt has a good explainer. Hopefully we never trigger it. https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU?si=vbs-PY5VEA9xv_gS https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU?si=vbs-PY5VEA9xv_gS
- cedws 9mo agoIn summer I was lying on a beach in Thailand and used an app on my phone to look at things in the sky. Pretty much every moving glistening object I could see was a Starlink satellite. I know nothing about how their constellation works but I wonder why so many are needed. Surely you only need one or two in line of sight for it to work? I was seeing many more than that.
- Jtsummers 9mo agoThey're in LEO which means approximately 15 minutes of visibility (horizon-to-horizon). The specific time will vary based on the orbital elements but 15 minutes is a good rule of thumb. To maintain coverage you need there to be some overlap in their visibility for a location. There's also a limit to how many connections each satellite can support. Not all the satellites that you can see will be "looking" in your direction for a signal. They support some number of cells (specific, small, geographic regions on the ground). No one satellite can cover the entire ground visible to it while overhead so more satellites are needed. And to add to the above, Starlink is using laser crosslinks to connect their satellites to each other for routing. This crosslink network is improved with more satellites visible to each other.
- cedws 9mo agoThanks.
- 9mo ago
- schiffern 9mo agohttps://archive.is/zPsmq https://archive.is/zPsmq For the predictable reasons, the article overemphasizes "number of satellites" and under-emphasizes "height of satellites" and "inclination of satellites." The CTC-1 constellation proposes to be at 510 km altitude and 97.4 degrees inclination[0], which is already a heavily-populated orbit[1] due to being in a Sun-synchronous orbit. Since the collision risk scales as the object density squared, this is an especially foolhardy decision from the perspective of space debris and space sustainability. Remember that most of the satellite collisions occur in a "halo" around the North and South poles where the SSO orbits all pile up. Avoiding these orbital slots (and in fact, removing defunct objects from these valuable orbits) is the best thing we could do for Kessler syndrome. China is doing literally the exact opposite. It also doesn't help that China just abandons their upper stages in orbit, rather than doing proper deorbit burns.[2] Since each Chinese rocket also can only launch a handful of satellites (vs almost 50 per SpaceX launch), the number of abandoned debris upper stages is truly massive, and again they're all being carelessly discarded in pretty much the worst possible orbit. [0] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=60274.0;attach=2398789;sess=0 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;... [1] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44021.0 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44021.0 [2] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/everyone-but-china-has-pretty-much-stopped-littering-in-low-earth-orbit/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/everyone-but-china-has...
- beepbooptheory 9mo agoWhy choose to put them on a heavily populated orbit? Is it cheaper or something?
- FloorEgg 9mo agoIt has a really good balance of engineering constraints. High enough that atmospheric drag doesn't require constant propulsion to maintain orbit. Low enough to get some radiation shielding. Lower orbits better for communication latency and imaging resolution. Also sun-synchronous orbits are in this zone. Good balance for coverage vs number of satellites. There are a lot of strategic reasons why this altitude is ideal.
- ur-whale 9mo ago[flagged]
- curiousgal 9mo agoAh yes, competing with the U.S. makes them thugs. Right.
- ur-whale 9mo ago> Ah yes, competing with the U.S. makes them thugs. Right. So the great firewall is just a myth ? Because if it isn't, then ... thugs sounds about right to me.
- krisboyz781 9mo ago[dead]
- monkaiju 9mo agoWeird jingoist tone... Sort sounds like you think their ruling class are thugs but ours are fine? Would you prefer an internationally run mega-constellation for rural internet access? I certainly would!
- with 9mo agoFiling an ITU submission is one thing, now they need to make reliable, reusable heavy-lift spacecraft. Probably 5-10 years out tbh. They're just squatting on approvals.
- litbear2022 9mo ago> On April 18, 2000, the BeiDou and Galileo systems were simultaneously declared. According to ITU rules, navigation satellites must be launched within 7 years and the corresponding frequency signals must be successfully transmitted and received in order to obtain the orbital position and frequency resources, otherwise they cannot obtain legal status. > At 4:11 a.m. on April 14, 2007, the BeiDou satellite, which was tasked with carrying out an important mission, took off and sent back a signal at around 8 p.m. on April 17. At this point, there were less than four hours left before the ITU's "seven-year deadline." https://en.eeworld.com.cn/news/qrs/eic475760.html https://en.eeworld.com.cn/news/qrs/eic475760.html
- maxglute 9mo ago>Under ITU rules established in 2019, satellite systems have to be operating – or have at least one satellite launched and operated for a period of time – within seven years of initial filing, after which they have to deploy 10 per cent of their constellations within two years, half within five years and all within seven years. 1. regulatory squatting on good mega constellation orbits. 2. if i'm reading this right PRC needs to hit 9k in 9 years, 100k in 14 years. Seems doable on PRC speed. If it's half, i.e. 100k with 5 years of filing, then no way target will be hit.
- Mountain_Skies 9mo agoStarlink was sold to investors as being politically neutral and almost immediately became a US military asset. It was just a matter of time before China wanted their own version. No doubt some other countries will want their own systems free of American or Chinese control, though obviously it's going to be more difficult for them to do something as complete. It's going to be an interesting choice for ESA/the EU to decide if they want their own thing too instead of relying on the US to be a fair broker of access. And of those countries who would like to have a system free of influence from other countries, well, if they can't afford to build one out, they might be able to orbit a bunch of chaff to even the playing field again.
- torlok 9mo agoEutelsat OneWeb it's mostly owned by Eutelsat and the UK government.
- manquer 9mo agoEutelsat Oneweb is a subsidiary of Eutelsat group which after the bankruptcy, merger and capital raises currently composed of - French state(29%), - Bharti Airtel -Indian telecom group (17%), - UK government (10%), - SoftBank (10%) -Japanese bank - CMA CGM(7.5%) french shipping company - a consortium of French insurance companies with 5% . Till recently a South Korean conglomerate Hanwha also had 5% stake . there is a significant concentration of holding by national governments, UK do have a golden share protecting their strategic needs , but their investment is now a small minority. it is mostly French company today with diversified direct interests from 4-5 major countries.
- TitaRusell 9mo agoWe need a ComStar- a neutral organisation that keeps the lights on while the great houses slaughter eachother.
- jimnotgym 9mo agoIt makes me think that if it is cheaper to develop methods to destroy satellites than it is to make your own mega constellation, then this is the only option for other countries. They will need to possess the means to clear orbit, in order to be sure of being allowed future access to the technology. It will be the new MAD
- litbear2022 9mo agoFYI, Seven years ago, China discussed banning killer robots at the United Nations, but the effort failed. The rest of the story is as you can see. - https://press.un.org/en/2019/gadis3635.doc.htm https://press.un.org/en/2019/gadis3635.doc.htm - https://web.archive.org/web/20201028152258/https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2018/04/convergence/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201028152258/https://www.stopk...
- 21asdffdsa12 9mo agoAnd that is a good thing, because china will reign in its junior partner who threatened to blow starlink up to get access to it in the ukrainewar.
- glemion43 9mo agoThe current star link system only provides access to 9 million people. Sure this is important but what is more important is 8 billion people having and keeping their access to space.
- bdavbdav 9mo agoI’d (un-)intuitively thought it would be way more than that. I know 3 people with subscriptions, and assumed that would scale!
- classified 9mo agoEven if we did get to use them, China will listen in on all traffic.