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

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)

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)

The Technical Choices of China’s NewSpace Launcher Companies in 2019

This article looks at the technical choices of Chinese NewSpace startups regarding propulsion technology and expendability/reusability, and what this reveals of their understanding of the commercial launch market. At the time of writing, we are entering the 5th year of China’s “Open Up Policy” in the space industry, which has enabled private capital to flow into space companies and triggered the emergence of a large … Continue reading The Technical Choices of China’s NewSpace Launcher Companies in 2019

FutureAerospace’s China Commercial Space Investment Report 2018: Highlights

2018 has been a crazy year for Chinese commercial space, and 2019 promises to be even crazier. iSpace raised 110 million RMB on January 3 [1], Minospace raised an estimated 20 million RMB on January 15 [2] , and as I am writing these lines (26/01/2019), Changguang Satellite (CGSTL) just raised a whooping 250 million RMB in an angel round [3]. This has literally smashed … Continue reading FutureAerospace’s China Commercial Space Investment Report 2018: Highlights

China’s New Space: a deep dive into the world’s fastest growing commercial space industry

Introduction China’s history with space is essentially that of large state corporations, even to this day. Until very recently, almost all of China’s space industry could be linked to just two state conglomerates: CASC (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation), and CASIC (China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation). The year 2014, however, marked a radical change of mindset. At a State Council executive meeting, Premier … Continue reading China’s New Space: a deep dive into the world’s fastest growing commercial space industry