China files plans to deploy more than 200,000 satellites

China submitted filings covering more than 200,000 satellites in the final week of December 2025, according to records released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Sunday.

The filings were dominated by two massive constellations, CTC-1 and CTC-2, each declaring a total of 96,714 satellites, for a combined total of more than 190,000 satellites, marking the largest satellite constellation filings on record.

ITU records show that both constellations were filed by the same operating agency, the Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilization and Technological Innovation, a national research institute newly registered in Hebei Province in December 2025.

Besides, other Chinese companies also submitted satellite filings to the ITU, with a total number of satellites ranging from single-digit to several thousand.

Low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites typically operate at altitudes of 200 to 2,000 kilometers, enabling low-latency and high-bandwidth communications.

However, growing congestion in orbital and radio spectrum resources has intensified international coordination efforts. Early filings have become a key factor in the global race to deploy satellite constellations.

Chinese companies are among the main competitors in the race to build large-scale LEO constellations. For instance, Shanghai Spacesail Technologies is committed to deploying around 15,000 satellites by 2030, and China Satellite Network Group has planned a constellation of roughly 13,000 satellites.

According to Beijing Fengtai District Bureau of Technology and Information Technology, China had filed for more than 51,300 satellites as of August 2024.

On January 9, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it had approved SpaceX's plan to deploy an additional 7,500 second-generation (Gen2) Starlink satellites, bringing the total number of authorized Gen2 Starlink satellites to around 15,000.

SpaceX has outlined a long-term vision to eventually expand the Starlink network up to around 42,000 satellites.

Under ITU rules, operating agencies must bring a required number of satellites into use within specified time frames or risk losing their associated spectrum and orbital rights.