{"id":528260,"date":"2026-06-10T15:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/528260\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:29:11","slug":"starlink-rival-qianfan-hits-satellite-milestone-but-is-it-too-slow-and-costly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/528260\/","title":{"rendered":"Starlink rival Qianfan hits satellite milestone, but is it too slow and costly?"},"content":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s Qianfan network<\/a> has hit a national milestone by placing over 200 broadband satellites in orbit, but there are concerns its deployment could be too slow and costly.<\/p>\n

The constellation now has 201 satellites after a successful launch on board a Zhuque-2E rocket from the Gobi Desert at 4.23pm Beijing time on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The mission delivered Qianfan DTC-01 \u2013 a direct-to-cell test satellite \u2013 alongside a satellite from China Mobile, state broadcaster CCTV reported.<\/p>\n

The flight followed back-to-back launches last Thursday and Friday from Taiyuan in central China and the new spaceport in southernmost Hainan, each sending 18 Qianfan satellites into orbit.<\/p>\n

Despite the quickening pace, the Starlink<\/a> challenger\u2019s roll-out still lags behind official targets.<\/p>\n

A source working at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre said Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) \u2013 the company behind Qianfan \u2013 had sent a delegation to watch Tuesday\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Qianfan network has hit a national milestone by placing over 200 broadband satellites in orbit, but there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[1793,18898,381,7308,18,9118,11395,4558,10562,227883,19,17,11396,10560,133,2792,141193,451,4425,128197],"class_list":["post-528260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-beijing","tag-cctv","tag-china","tag-china-mobile","tag-eire","tag-falcon","tag-gobi-desert","tag-guowang","tag-hainan","tag-hu-haiying","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jiuquan-satellite-launch-centre","tag-qianfan","tag-science","tag-shanghai","tag-shanghai-spacecom-satellite-technology","tag-space","tag-starlink","tag-taiyuan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116726527821530132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}