Rapid rise of China's commercial space industry expected to continue

China will continue to promote the healthy and rapid development of its commercial space industry by creating a good environment and expanding the scale of the industry, with standardized supervision and management, a senior official at the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Wednesday.

Last year's Central Economic Work Conference called for nurturing strategic emerging industries such as the commercial space industry, and this year's government work report proposed to actively build the commercial space industry as a new growth engine, both showing that China's commercial space industry has entered a new stage, said Lyu Bo, deputy director of the Department of System Engineering of CNSA, at a press conference in Beijing.

At present, nine types of commercial launch vehicles are available for launch services, and a number of enterprises are building constellations consisting of about 100 satellites, he said, adding that the country's first commercial launch site is under construction.

Attendees at the press conference were briefed on the upcoming Space Day of China, which falls on April 24. Its major events will be held in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

At the briefing, Guo Bin, a Hubei provincial government official, said that the total output value of the commercial space industry and related industries in the province reached 56 billion yuan (about $7.74 billion) in 2023.

There are over 300 commercial aerospace and related industry enterprises in Hubei, forming a complete industrial chain covering rocket and satellite development, ground equipment support and satellite operation services, said Guo.

Space technology is widely used in natural resources, emergency management, ecological protection, transportation, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, smart cities and other fields. The integration of communication, navigation and remote sensing satellite technology with 5G and artificial intelligence has broad prospects for development, Guo said.

The official also explained the development of the commercial space industry in the province, such as the commercial rocket industrial park, the flexible intelligent production line for small satellites, the integrated satellite data platform for public service, and the high precision BeiDou navigation application chip.

Yao Qing, an official with the Wuhan municipal government, told the press that the Wuhan National Aerospace Industry Base aims to achieve the coordinated development of the whole industrial chain by focusing on new launch vehicles, satellite platforms and payloads, ground and terminal products, satellite internet, space-based internet, and other fields.