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This week: We hear more about the plans of iSpace, LandSpace, and ZeroG Lab, and we consider the possibility of a China-Russia entente in space.
Translation
Our translation of the week comes from the often-nationalistic state-run paper The Global Times, in an article written by Yang Shasha titled In the era of big aerospace, how do Chinese businesses gain momentum?
The Global Times interviewed executives from three of China’s leading newspace companies: iSpace, the rocket manufacturer and company that launched China’s first private rocket, LandSpace, another private rocket manufacturer and iSpace competitor, as well as nanosatellite manufacturer ZeroG Lab.
Highlights
Yao Bowen, iSpace VP on comparisons with SpaceX:
“U.S. commercial aerospace took 6 years to complete the launch into orbit. We spent half of the time. If we simply compare this time, we have reason to believe that the gap between China and the US in commercial aerospace will become smaller and smaller, even in the future. At a certain point in time it will match or even surpass.
…In fact, we have a big gap in terms of size. SpaceX currently has 6,000 employees and a market value of over 30 billion U.S. dollars. We currently only have about 180 employees and have only three years of development. Therefore, we still have to work hard to achieve the same level of dialogue with SpaceX.”
Yao Bowen also argued that in the current market, pricing power lies with rocket makers.
LandSpace founder Zhang Changwu on LandSpace’s upcoming rocket, Zhuque-2:
LandSpace has broken through all the key technologies of the high-thrust liquid oxygen methane engine. He told reporters that the Zhuque-2 liquid carrier rocket can be developed into a heavy-duty and recoverable rocket with greater capacity in the future, and it will become a capacity covering high, medium and low orbits, meeting the requirements of high-efficiency and rapid networking from small satellite networks to large-scale constellation systems.
Zhuque-2 (Source: China Times)
ZeroG Lab founder Lan Lidong on the Lingque constellation:
"This year, we plan to continue launching in October," said Lan Lidong, chair of ZeroG Lab, in an interview with a reporter from the Global Times. The Lingque remote sensing constellation plans to launch 132 satellites in the next few years to achieve “seeing” the Earth in half a day.
…The Lingque remote sensing constellation is China’s first autonomous and controllable high time resolution remote sensing application constellation released by a commercial aerospace company.
…At present, the remote sensing satellites launched by ZeroG Lab are widely used in agriculture and forestry. Lan Lidong said that taking agricultural tea as an example, the growth of tea trees and outbreaks of diseases and insect pests can be monitored through satellites.
You can read the full translation here.
Interesting Links
Jacqeline Feldscher and Bryan Bender, writing in the POLITICO Space newsletter, cover how issues relating to China have held up the latest NASA authorization bill:
The two amendments from Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) would order the Government Accountability Office to review NASA contractors for any business ties to China and require the NASA administrator to take into account any involvement with China when awarding contracts.
…SpaceX has been lobbying against similar legislative provisions being considered in the House, a House staffer tells us. SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk, who also owns Tesla, a luxury car company that operates a factory in China. Lobbyists for the company argued that SpaceX could be hurt by the bill, which would require NASA to look at whether companies had any “affiliation” with a company that has ties to China, the staffer said.
In the post-Cold War era, both China and Russia have been viewed by the US as geopolitical frenemies, potential partners but also potential adversaries. Which is why the difference between the way that the US treats China and Russia in the domain of space has always been fascinating to me. China is locked out collaboration with the US in space while Russia has been courted.
As I mentioned in the last issue, however, the head of Roscosmos, the state-owned enterprise which is in charge of the Russian space program, recently made some comments about partnering with China in space.
Rumors of Russia-US space breakup are nothing new. Anatoly Zak, writing in Popular Mechanics in 2018, outlines some of what a Russian space realignment might look like:
The country could shift its human spaceflight cooperation from the U.S. to China, sources within Roscosmos told Popular Mechanics. One possible scenario includes Roscosmos exiting the International Space Station program early.
Russian experts were instructed to put forward ideas by March 15, including concepts for potential contributions to the planned Chinese space station along with a joint Russian-Chinese plans to send humans to the Moon.
News Roundup
July 31: The founder of Galactic Energy said that they will try to launch rocket, Ceres-1, by the end of September (link in Chinese)
August 2: The Mars mission Tianwen-1 completed its first trajectory correction
August 3: The China Satellite Navigation Office announced that 28 nanometer Beidou navigation chips were in mass production, with 22 nanometer chips to be produced soon
August 4: The second phase of construction of the Kuaizhou Rocket Industrial Park started in Wuhan. It should be completed by March 2021
August 8: There are rumors that the iPhone 12 will support the BeiDou satellite navigation system. The iPhone is currently one of the only smartphones in China that does not support BeiDou
Until next time
My name is Cory Fitz and I write the Taikonautica newsletter. To make you smarter about China’s rapidly evolving space industry, Taikonautica brings you translations of Chinese-language articles, as well as a roundup of links and news.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me on Twitter at @cory_fitz