First launch of China’s giant Qianfen (G60) constellation

After several years of delays and various changes in plans, China has slowly begun to deploy its giant constellations. On August 6, 2024 at 06:42 UTC, SAST launched a CZ-6A Y21 Long March rocket from ramp 9A of the Taiyuan Space Center with the first 18 satellites of the Qianfen (G60) constellation on the “Qianfen Polar Orbiter Constellation 1” (千帆极轨01组卫星) mission. The initial orbit was at an inclination of 89 degrees and an altitude of 800 kilometers. This was the seventh launch of the SAST CZ-6A rocket and the first commercial announcement. It was also the fourth time that the second stage disintegrated in orbit on August 7 after its mission ended, generating a large number of orbital fragments (about fifty large pieces). Although these disintegrations do not affect the mission, they represent a serious problem with space debris in low Earth orbit, so SAST must resolve this issue as soon as possible.

The Qianfen constellation (千帆星座, “thousand candles” in Mandarin), also called G60 – officially called G60 Starlink (G60星链) – is operated by SSST (Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology / 上海垣信卫星科技有限公司), sometimes called Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology or GMS Space. Founded in 2018, the company plans to deploy up to 15,000 G60 satellites into orbit (there were initially 12,000). The deployment will take place in three phases. In the first phase, by the end of 2025, 648 first-generation satellites will be launched into 1,000-kilometer orbits for regional coverage (more than a hundred units are planned to be launched this year). Between 2026 and 2027, another, more capable generation of 648 satellites will be launched to achieve global coverage. The first 1,296 satellites of the two phases will be distributed across 36 orbital planes, with 36 satellites each. The third phase will consist of deploying several more advanced generations at altitudes between 300 and 500 kilometers, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, until reaching 15,000 units.

The first 18 Qianfen satellites were built by the Shanghai Academy of Microsatellite Innovation (MicroSat, 上海微小卫星工程中心), an institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which has already put more than 120 satellites into orbit. Each satellite weighs about 300 kg and has krypton-based Hall effect electric propulsion motors with a thrust of 20 millinewtons, a power of 550 watts, and a specific pulse (Isp) of 1,385 seconds. They are built on the general lines of the flat design of SpaceX’s first-generation Starlink, a design that makes them easier to stack and deploy in orbit. For this mission, the 18 satellites were assembled into two sets of nine modules, but it is expected that they will be able to launch up to 36 or 54 modules per mission in later launches using more powerful launchers. As of today, it is not clear which launchers will be used to deploy the G60 or whether the CZ-6A will play a significant role (it is a launcher from SAST, a Shanghai-based company, like the G60 constellation). Like the first Starlink, these satellites have a single solar panel. They have an estimated service life of seven years and will operate in the Ku, Q, and V bands.

However, not all of the first 648 Qianfen satellites will be built by MicroSat, as at least half of them will be built by Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd, known as GeneSat or Gesi. The satellite deployment system is being implemented by CAS Space (Zhongke), another CAS subsidiary known for the Lijian/Kinetica rocket family. According to ITU standards (International Telecommunication Union), at least 10% of Qianfen satellites must be in orbit nine years after frequency reservations are made and deployment must be completed no later than fifteen years. Shanghai Yuanxin and MicroSat launched two Ka-band communications satellites weighing less than 100 kg in November 2019 using the Kuaizhou 1A launcher, although the launch at the time was related to the KLEO Connect constellation project in cooperation with Germany, not the G60. After the cooperation agreement between China and Germany collapsed, Shanghai Yuanxin chose to use many of the KLEO constellation’s features in the G60 – frequencies and orbital planes – leading to several lawsuits that remain unresolved. In August 2021, Shanghai Yuanxin and MicroSat launched two prototype satellites of the G60 constellation into orbit.

The other major Chinese constellation is the national network, or Guowang (国网). While the G60 is a more commercial initiative initially developed with support from the Shanghai local government, Guowang is a national project run by the more prominent state-owned China Satellite Network Group Corporation (中国卫星网络集团有限公司) like China SatNet, in the city of Xiong’an. Guowang will rely on a number of commercial and government suppliers and there are already several experimental satellites in orbit – it’s still not entirely clear which satellites are Guowangs. It’s assumed, based on these orbital tests, that more or fewer units of some types of satellites will be launched than others. However, no dedicated launch has yet been carried out to deploy Guowang satellites. Unlike Qianfen, the main launcher used for Guowang is supposed to be the CZ-8A launched from Wenchang, although commercial vectors will also be used. Once completed, Guowang will have 13,000 satellites.

In addition to Qianfen and G60, there are other Chinese commercial megaprojects, such as Huawei. Recently, Shanghai Blue Arrow (上海蓝箭鸿擎科技有限公司) announced its intention to deploy a massive Honghu 3 constellation — 鸿鹄, “swan” — with 10,000 modules. Unlike other projects, Honghu already has prototypes in orbit that were launched in December last year, and it hopes to mainly use private company LandSpace’s reusable Zhuque 3 launcher to launch satellites. Beijing-based GalaxySpace (Galaxy Aerospace or 银河航天) also has plans to build a constellation of 1,000 modules in an orbit of about 510 kilometers. Each satellite will weigh between 225 and 330 kilograms. In July 2023, GalaxySpace launched the Lingxi-03 (灵犀03) satellite using the CZ-2D, a prototype of a flat Starlink satellite that will be launched stacked like SpaceX’s constellation.

The positive part of the start of the deployment of the giant Chinese satellites is that in the coming years and months we will certainly see official statements expressing concern from organizations and governments about the problem of deploying tens of thousands of satellites in low orbit, including organizations and institutions that have so far remained silent or downplayed the inconveniences when the only constellation in service was Starlink. Better late than never.