Can China's commercial space firms replicate SpaceX magic?

Chinese players working to close gap, but barriers to accessing global markets remain

- Michelle Ng

BEIJING - On a clear morning on May 17, a methane-fuelled rocket thundered off its launchpad in the Gobi Desert, piercing the sky over north-western China carrying six satellites into orbit.

This marked the fifth successful flight for LandSpace, one of China's rising commercial aerospace companies, and underlined Beijing's ambition to catapult its commercial space sector onto the global stage.

Two days later, Galactic Energy, another fast-growing Chinese space player, launched a rocket from a ship at sea off eastern Shandong province, deploying four satellites into orbit.

The number of rocket launches in China by both state-owned and private firms is expected to hit a record high in 2025, according to Chinese industry reports, amid plans to ramp up investment in the sector.

So far, China has carried out more than 30 orbital launches, including at least six in June, with more on the horizon. In 2024, the country recorded 68 orbital launches and in 2023, 67 launches.

China's space sector used to be tightly controlled by the state, until it was opened up to private companies in 2015.

Today, there are more than 500 commercial space companies in China.

China's commercial space market is projected to balloon from around 2.8 trillion yuan (S$498 billion) in 2025 to over 6.6 trillion yuan by 2029, according to various research estimates.

In 2024, the Chinese government listed the commercial space sector as a "new engine of economic growth" in its government work report for the first time, prompting cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to roll out plans to accelerate investment in the sector.

Private firms offer services such as space tourism, satellite internet, Earth imaging for farming or city planning purposes as well as private rocket launches for putting small satellites into orbit.