Beijing scales up commercial aerospace industrial layout

A total of 20 companies have announced plans to establish operations in Star Town located in Beijing's Haidian district, signaling the ramping up of Beijing's comprehensive aerospace industrial chains including satellites and rocket sectors.

These chains are strategically positioned in both northern and southern Beijing. Opposite Star Town in northern Beijing, a "Rocket Street" was inaugurated earlier this year in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as E-Town, in southern Beijing.

Currently, the street is home to more than 200 commercial rocket companies, accounting for three-quarters of the nation's total.

Zhang Guangming, deputy head of Haidian district, stated, "The district has set an ambitious goal to launch up to 1,000 satellites and achieve industrial growth of 100 billion yuan ($14.7 billion) by 2028."

Star Town, covering an area of 24.5 square kilometers, will collaborate with leading research institutes such as the China Academy of Space Technology and the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, leveraging their research capabilities as major support.

Market insiders anticipate an increased presence of private satellite companies entering the industry in the near future, with various funds amounting to 10 billion yuan in the pipeline as Zhongguancun Science City revealed during Friday's signing ceremony at which the companies announced their plans to establish their presence in Star Town.

The moves align with the country's objective to boost the satellite and rocket sectors.

Xing Jin, deputy director of the earth observation data center under the China National Space Administration, said: "The commercial space sector is accelerating. The deep integration of remote sensing technology and artificial intelligence continues to create new industrial application scenarios."

Currently, over 400 Chinese civilian and commercial remote sensing satellites are in orbit. Nationwide, more than 600 commercial aerospace enterprises are operating, with over 400 privately owned.

Wang Haibo, president of Guotian Kexin Space Technology (Beijing) Co Ltd — one of the companies soon to be based in Star Town — urged the establishment of a unified satellite resource pool to connect satellite terminals with application service chains and to create a standardized revenue-sharing mechanism.

"Such initiatives are expected to lower barriers to accessing remote sensing data, expand civil applications for public security and consumer-facing services, and enable the downstream market to feed back into the upstream satellite industry," Wang said.