{"id":284270,"date":"2025-07-23T04:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T04:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/284270\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T04:20:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T04:20:14","slug":"exclusive-has-the-qianfan-satellite-network-chinas-starlink-rival-run-into-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/284270\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Has the Qianfan satellite network \u2013 China\u2019s Starlink rival \u2013 run into trouble?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Chinese mega-constellation of communications satellites is facing serious delays that could jeopardise its ambitions to compete with <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/spacex?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">SpaceX\u2019s<\/a> Starlink for valuable orbital resources.Only 90 satellites have been launched into low Earth orbit for the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science\/article\/3292311\/will-delayed-launch-put-china-plans-build-starlink-rival-long-term-risk?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Qianfan broadband network<\/a> \u2013 also known as the Thousand Sails Constellation or G60 Starlink \u2013 well short of the project\u2019s goal of 648 by the end of this year.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Under international regulations to prevent spectrum hoarding, satellite operators must deploy a certain proportion of their constellation within set times after securing orbits and radio frequencies.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology, the company leading the project, plans to deploy more than 15,000 satellites by 2030 to deliver direct-to-phone internet services worldwide.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">To stay on track, Yuanxin \u2013 which is backed by the Shanghai municipal government \u2013 would have to launch more than 30 satellites a month to achieve its milestones of 648 by the end of 2025 for regional coverage and 1,296 two years later for global connectivity.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">At the heart of the delay is a severe shortage of rockets, as China\u2019s manufacturing and launch capacity struggle to keep pace with the explosive demand for satellite deployment, according to a rocket engineer based in Beijing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chinese mega-constellation of communications satellites is facing serious delays that could jeopardise its ambitions to compete with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[3801,1395,10224,106530,56363,106533,37993,56368,70,10741,106531,413,1603,3435,106532,16,15,54304,93849],"class_list":{"0":"post-284270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-falcon-9","11":"tag-g60-starlink","12":"tag-guowang","13":"tag-long-march","14":"tag-oneweb","15":"tag-qianfan","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-shanghai","18":"tag-shanghai-yuanxin-satellite-technology","19":"tag-space","20":"tag-spacex","21":"tag-starlink","22":"tag-taiyuan","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-us-air-force","26":"tag-wenchang"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114900633422015946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}