HELSINKI — China appears set to launch the first satellites for a long-expected national low Earth orbit megaconstellation after rollout of a Long March 5B rocket at Wenchang spaceport.
Images posted on Chinese social media site Sina Weibo Dec. 10 show a Long March 5B rocket on the pad at Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island. This, along with an announced temporary restricted airspace over Wenchang running to Dec. 16, indicate a launch in the coming days.
Leaked mission patches suggest the payload for the mission will be Guowang satellites for China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd. (China SatNet), which runs the national Guowang low Earth orbit (LEO) megaconstellation plan.
The rollout of the Long March 5B rocket was notably subdued, despite the ostensibly civilian focus of the Guowang constellation. Reports and video typically accompany the rollout of the flagship rocket.
Guowang, meaning “National Network,” is China’s project to establish a national satellite internet constellation, aiming to provide global broadband internet coverage and support the country’s growing digital economy, national security needs, and international connectivity goals. It is also a response to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation and other megaconstellation plans such as OneWeb and Kuiper. There are already over 5,000 Starlink satellites in orbit.
The existence of the Guowang constellation plans first became known in 2020 through filings for just under 13,000 satellites with the International Telecommunication Union. Progress on Guowang appears to be slow, and little is known about the satellites to be launched. The Qianfan/Thousand Sails project, a Shanghai-based megaconstellation, started later but has already sent its first 54 satellites into orbit across three launches this year.
China Satnet has, meanwhile, set up a headquarters in Xiong’an New Area in Hebei Province.
Guowang supersedes two earlier and much smaller LEO communications constellations named Hongyan and Hongyun, planned by China’s main space contractor CASC and its sister defense giant CASIC respectively.
Long March 5B
The Long March 5B is infamous for its first stages entering orbit and making high-profile uncontrolled reentries, whereas normally, first stages do not reach orbit velocity and fall within defined areas of sea, or, in the case of most SpaceX Falcon rocket launches, the first stage is recovered after a powered descent.
However, this latest Long March 5B mission will, for the first time, use a Yuanzheng-2 upper stage to deliver multiple satellites into orbit. The 5B first stage may then end its burn before reaching orbit. Previous missions delivered the three modules that make up the Tiangong space station into orbit. The first stage separately carried each roughly 22-23 metric ton module directly into low Earth orbit, with the first stage orbit then decaying naturally. The Long March 5B has not flown since launching the third Tiangong module, named Mengtian, in late 2022.
The Long March 5B boasts China’s highest capacity to LEO. The rocket, while capable of launching heavy payloads and featuring a capacious long, 5.0-meter-diameter fairing, may not be cost-effective or practical for deploying large constellations. Other Long March rockets, such as the Long March 8 and new Long March 12, could play a large role in realizing China’s constellation plans. Chinese commercial actors, meanwhile, are developing reusable medium-lift launchers with the aim of gaining contracts for such launches.
China has so far conducted 62 orbital launch attempts in 2024, just shy of its national record of 67 launches set last year, and far short of the planned 100 attempts outlined early this year.
The start of the Thousand Sails and Guowang constellations however has seen China launch more than 230 spacecraft already this year, surpassing the national record of 221 set in 2023. It also indicates China’s launch rate and number of spacecraft in orbit will continue to grow rapidly in the years ahead, with implications for the global space economy, China’s geopolitical presence, space traffic management and more.