By Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING (Reuters) – Geespace, a company backed by Chinese automaker Geely, said on Friday it launched a third batch of satellites as part of its plan to form a megaconstellation it described as China’s equivalent of U.S. firm SpaceX’s Starlink.
The 10 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites were launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, located in the northern province of Shanxi, Geespace said in a statement.
“With this latest launch, the constellation now includes 30 satellites, covering 90% of the globe with 24-hour communication services,” Geespace said.
“This deployment marks the first time a Chinese commercial aerospace company has offered LEO satellite communication on a global scale,” the company said.
The carmaker’s Geely Technology Group created Geespace to research, launch, and operate low-orbit satellites in 2018.
LEO satellites usually operate at altitudes of 300-2,000 km (186-1243 miles) above the Earth’s surface and have the advantage of being cheaper and provide more efficient transmission than satellites at higher orbits.
Geespace placed its first 20 satellites in orbit in two separate launches, in 2022 and earlier this year.
Geespace plans to build a constellation of nearly 6,000 LEO satellites that would provide global broadband, the company said, describing the constellation as “China’s private equivalent to ‘Starlink'”.
SpaceX’s Starlink is a growing commercial broadband constellation that has about 5,500 satellites in space and is used by consumers, companies and government agencies.
Starlink, operated by billionaire Elon Musk, has tens of thousands of users in the United States and plans to add tens of thousands more satellites to its system, the largest of its kind.
Geespace’s Friday satellite launch is part of its first construction phase for its constellation, which aims to put 72 satellites in orbit to service over 200 million users worldwide by the end of 2025.
The second phase will add 264 satellites for mobile phone communications, while the third phase will launch 5,676 satellites for high-speed broadband.
Geespace is one of several Chinese firms hoping to rival Starlink.
Last month, state-owned enterprise Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) launched a batch of LEO satellites from Taiyuan for its “Thousand Sails Constellation”, also known as the “G60 Starlink Plan”.
SSST’s plan is to launch 108 satellites this year, 648 satellites by the end of 2025 and have 15,000 satellites deployed before 2030.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Michael Perry)
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