China Aerospace Blog Discontinued (replaced by Dongfang Hour)
Dear friends and followers, fellow space enthusiasts, As you may have noticed, China Aerospace Blog has been rather inactive over the past year, going from one blog post per month in 2018-2020 to barely one article over the past year. The main reason is the time I have had to invest into China space/aviation blogging has increasingly shrinked, and I have had to prioritize. Therefore … Continue reading China Aerospace Blog Discontinued (replaced by Dongfang Hour)
China Has Been Investing Massively in the Beidou SatNav Constellation: Here’s Why
Introduction You may have heard of Beidou, the Chinese satnav constellation and rival of the American GPS, Russian Glonass, and European Galileo. 2020 marked a major milestone for Beidou, with the completion of the constellation deployment on June 23 2020, on board a Long March 3B rocket. This deep dive article discusses the development of Beidou over the past 20 years and its strategic importance … Continue reading China Has Been Investing Massively in the Beidou SatNav Constellation: Here’s Why
A Recap of 2020 in Chinese Space (in 10 Points)
2020 is coming to an end, and how unusual it has been, to say the least. This year has been an extremely eventful one for Chinese space, with many “firsts”, some major successes, as well as some failures. In this blog post, I do the useful exercise of looking retrospectively at 2020, and picking the most significant events. Without any further ado, let’s begin. 1 … Continue reading A Recap of 2020 in Chinese Space (in 10 Points)
Chinese Private Constellations and the Art of the Pivot
In one of the most influential entrepreneurship books of the last 10 years, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries describes the necessity to test, iterate, and pivot until ultimately reaching a product that fits the market. Chinese tech companies have shown us that they excel at this practice (see the history of a company like Meituan [1]), and it increasingly seems like Chinese NewSpace companies, … Continue reading Chinese Private Constellations and the Art of the Pivot
Discussing Chinese Satcom Constellations with Lan Tianyi (Repost from the Dongfang Hour)
Earlier this month, my friend Blaine Curcio and I had the opportunity to interview Lan Tianyi, the CEO of Ultimate Blue Nebula and SpaceKey, two Beijing-based firms focusing on space/satellite industry consulting. Having worked in the industry from within the state-owned apparatus (CAST), the startup perspective, and now as a consulting company, Tianyi is really a wealth of knowledge on Chinese space. And fortunately for … Continue reading Discussing Chinese Satcom Constellations with Lan Tianyi (Repost from the Dongfang Hour)
Commenting on China’s Commercial Aviation Industry with the Latest CAAC Report
Introduction In June 2020, CAAC drew an annual portrait of China’s aviation industry, through its annual Aviation Industry Report, covering commercial, cargo, and general aviation. In this blog post, we’ll focus essentially on commercial passenger transportation. While published in 2020, this report is based on figures of 2019, thus drawing a very different and positive picture of an industry that has recently suffered dearly during … Continue reading Commenting on China’s Commercial Aviation Industry with the Latest CAAC Report
Introducing Dongfang Hour: a Podcast Specifically Dedicated to Chinese Aerospace & Technology
Regular followers of China Aerospace Blog may have noticed it over the past month, a new “Dongfang Hour Podcast” link has appeared on the navigation bar. After weeks of working on the project and recording the first episodes, I am pleased to officially present the project to China Aerospace Blog followers & visitors. In a nutshell, Dongfang Hour is a podcast dedicated to the Chinese … Continue reading Introducing Dongfang Hour: a Podcast Specifically Dedicated to Chinese Aerospace & Technology
China’s Spaceplane Projects: Past, Present and Future
This article is the second and final part of a two-piece blog post by China Aerospace Blog on Chinese spaceplanes. The first part discussed China’s historical approach to reusability, and more specifically to spaceplanes. This part extends the discussion by reviewing current Chinese spaceplane projects, and provides a map. Mapping Current Chinese Spaceplane Projects Below is a map of all Chinese spaceplane projects, including abandoned … Continue reading China’s Spaceplane Projects: Past, Present and Future
A Historical Perspective on Chinese Spaceplanes
This piece is the first of a two-part blog post by China Aerospace Blog on Chinese spaceplanes. It sets the context of spaceplanes in China, and goes over past attempts to make such vehicles. Part 2 will provide an analysis of current projects under development from Chinese state-owned and private companies. Table of Contents 1 – Introduction to spaceplanes 2 – China’s take on the … Continue reading A Historical Perspective on Chinese Spaceplanes
Chinese Aviation Cities: the Obvious, the Unexpected, and the Discrepant
In this blog post, China Aerospace Blog revisits the “What is the Chinese Aviation Industry Like?” article, which dates back to July 2018. While the former was essentially based on the China Civil Aviation Industry Report 2017 by MIIT, this blog post is built on a different set of data detailed below. The focus is also different: we single out the main aeronautical cities in … Continue reading Chinese Aviation Cities: the Obvious, the Unexpected, and the Discrepant
The China Aerospace Blog 