Episode 2 - China's Long March to Commercial Launch
This week, we discussed the history of China’s commercial launch industry, and commercial space industry more generally.
China has a long and winding history of commercial launch services. Having launched their first satellite in 1970, China developed a commercial launch industry in the 1980s and 1990s, launching foreign satellites (including a handful of American ones, which were made politically possible by the 1986 Challenger Disaster, and subsequent decision by the US to stop flying commercial satellites on the Space Shuttle). Over the course of the late 1980s and 1990s, China’s commercial launch industry picked up some international market share and was seeing initial signs of success, but this all changed with multiple failures in the mid-1990s, namely Apstar-2 and Intelsat-708. The two failures--both involving American-made satellites--led to the United States barring the launch of sensitive American technology on Chinese rockets, with this meaning no American-made satellites, and indeed few European-made ones, could launch on Chinese rockets.
This turning point caused China to focus on developing turnkey space solutions for export, that is, building the satellite, launch vehicle, and all assorted hardware and technical services. This model has seen some success, with China having exported rocket launches and satellites to countries including Pakistan, Nigeria, and Venezuela. However, it has faced challenges, including the relatively limited market size for $300M turnkey satellites.
Partly as a result, and partly because of increasing innovation coming from the west, China has opened its space industry to more commercial companies and investors, and in no vertical has this been more apparent than launch. While China’s most advanced commercial launch companies are only just now reaching the point of providing commercial launch services, we are likely to see more activity from these companies in the future.
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