China’s “Starlink” Takes to the Skies, Large-Scale Civil Use Expected in Three Years

On Tuesday, the first batch of networking satellites for the “Qianfan Constellation” project (also known as the G60 Starlink project) successfully launched into orbit with the “one arrow, 18 stars” method, initiating its first layout.

China will have three constellations of tens of thousands of satellites. In addition to the “Qianfan Constellation,” which launched its first batch of networking satellites today, there is also the “GW Constellation” by China Star Network Company, expected to have nearly 13,000 satellites, and the “Honghu-3 Constellation” project planned by Hongqing Technology, expected to launch 10,000 satellites.

As a benchmark, by late July, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had launched over 6,700 Starlink satellites, with more than 6,200 in orbit. Although the Chinese version of “Starlink” started late, it is catching up rapidly. In the next 3-5 years, China’s low-Earth orbit satellite internet will scale up for civil use.

However, some industry insiders have stated that due to factors such as domestic operating licenses, the Chinese version of “Starlink” may initially “bloom outside the wall,” providing satellite internet services to Southeast Asia and other regions first. Currently, domestic satellite internet services are mainly based on high-throughput satellites.

The plan first surfaced in 2021. According to official disclosures, the plan’s construction is divided into three stages: the first stage plans to achieve regional network coverage with 648 satellites by the end of 2025; the second stage aims to provide global network coverage by the end of 2027; the third stage plans to add 14,000 satellites by the end of 2030 to provide multi-service integration services directly to mobile phones, planning to launch more than 15,000 satellites in total.

From the networking information currently revealed by the “Qianfan Constellation,” the global data bearing network to be built includes not only satellites in space but also ground systems such as measurement and control centers, regional operation centers, measuring and controlling stations, core node signal stations, etc. Among them, the regional center will deploy core node signal stations to form a full-function core network, including control and data surfaces. The regional bearing network is built through access node signal stations, including the core network and data surface.

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