China launching state rival to Elon Musk’s SpaceX

China aims to launch as many as 10,000 satellites to create a new StarNet network and stake its low-Earth orbit claim vis-a-vis US

By FRANK CHEN

China’s state-owned telecommunications carriers plan to launch as many as 10,000 satellites in the next five to ten years to form a constellation in low-Earth orbit and keep pace with US rivals.

Chinese cadres overseeing space technologies were reputedly jolted by space entrepreneur Elon Musk’s recent assertion that with 775 satellites up and running in orbit his SpaceX company had leapfrogged NASA as the world’s largest satellite operator.

Musk made the claim when as many as 60 American satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink high-speed global Internet access project were launched last month from his company’s Falcon-9 rocket.

In comparison, China currently has just 432 satellites in orbit, according to space exploration data cruncher n2yo.com. 

Now, Beijing is thus ratcheting up its push to launch more satellites for a Chinese “StarNet” project before the United States and private firms like SpaceX fill the entire lower orbital space. …….more here

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