Category: Industry Overview

Industry Overview, mapping, Space

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

Jean DevilleLeave a comment
Industry Overview, Space

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)

Jean DevilleLeave a comment
Industry Overview, Space

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

Jean Deville2 Comments
airlines, airports, aviation, Industry Overview

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

Jean Deville4 Comments
Industry Overview, mapping, Space, Start-ups

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

Jean Deville3 Comments
Industry Overview, Space

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

Jean Deville3 Comments
aviation, Industry Overview, mapping

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

Jean DevilleLeave a comment
Industry Overview, Investment, Space, Start-ups

Thoughts on the “Hype” about China’s NewSpace Launcher Startups – (Part 2/2)

This blogpost is a follow-up of a previous article (part 1/2) discussing the hype about Chinese private launchers. While we previously essentially put emphasis on investment and launch vehicles from an offer standpoint, this second and final post focuses on the demand for launchers, in other words to what extent the small sat market will be able to sustain Chinese launchers. Market Size and Ecosystem … Continue reading Thoughts on the “Hype” about China’s NewSpace Launcher Startups – (Part 2/2)

Jean Deville1 Comment
Industry Overview, Investment, Space, Start-ups

Thoughts on the “Hype” about China’s NewSpace Launcher Startups – (Part 1/2)

Introduction When discussing the rapid development of China’s private space sector and notably launch vehicles, many observers hint at a bubble: an unhealthy number of startups all pursuing the same scope of activities with similar technical solutions, and unsustainable growth not correlated with market demand. Is this justified? In this blogpost I offer some thoughts and engage in a comparison between Chinese and US NewSpace, … Continue reading Thoughts on the “Hype” about China’s NewSpace Launcher Startups – (Part 1/2)

Jean Deville2 Comments
Industry Overview, Investment, Space, Start-ups

Who’s Investing in China’s NewSpace? FutureAerospace Provides Some Answers in Latest Report

Note: the figures in this blog post come from FutureAerospace’s latest Commercial Space Investment Race report. In this article I have translated and commented on them. Original report in Mandarin is readily available on the web, for example at [1] or [2]. Yes, China’s NewSpace is growing. But Who is Backing Them? Space industry observers are generally aware that a very significant amount of investment … Continue reading Who’s Investing in China’s NewSpace? FutureAerospace Provides Some Answers in Latest Report

Jean DevilleLeave a comment