HELSINKI — China has launched its first satellites for the Guowang constellation, but a veil of secrecy surrounds their purpose and capabilities, raising more questions than answers.
China launched the first 10 satellites for its Guowang (‘national net’) megaconstellation Dec. 16, using a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang spaceport. A second batch of satellites, known as satellite internet low-orbit group 02, recently arrived at Wenchang, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation stated Jan. 6.
Yet very little is known about the satellites. Even their designation does not definitively tie them to the Guowang project, though apparent leaked mission patches reveal the launch was for SatNet, the state-owned enterprise established to oversee the national project.
The size and mass of the satellites is unknown. This is in contrast to the Thousand Sails (Qianfan, also formerly known as G60 Starlink) constellation, which has revealed images of some of its flat-panel satellites produced by Genesat.
That only 10 Guowang satellites launched on the Long March 5B — China’s most powerful option for launches to low Earth orbit with a payload capacity of up to 25,000 kilograms — also provokes queries, along with the lack of transparency.
“It is possible that they are being built to do something other than space-based internet, or in addition to that,” Victoria Samson, chief director for Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, told SpaceNews.
Liberation Army Daily, an official Chinese military newspaper, ran a piece in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine claiming that Starlink may have provided more than communications to assist the Ukrainian response, also claiming Starlink satellites can carry reconnaissance, navigation, meteorological and other payloads to enhance the U.S. military’s combat capabilities, as well as claiming the U.S. is using commercial space to further military capabilities. This, and the lack of transparency, raises the question of if Guowang satellites are larger so as to be equipped with payloads in addition to those for communications, providing a rationale for a lack of transparency. This is speculative, and there may be other possibilities.
“It is also possible that they have had some technical issues in getting the satellites ready for flight, small enough to be stacked like the way the Starlinks and Thousand Sails satellites are,” Samson notes.
Samson also notes that the altitude at which the Guowang satellites are is roughly the same as Oneweb’s constellation, which aims to provide connectivity with hundreds of satellites, rather than the thousands planned by Starlink and Thousand Sails. The 10 Guowang satellites are orbiting with apogees of between 1,114–1,127 kilometers and perigees of 1,098–1,112 km. However, filings with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2020 for Guowang detail plans for 13,000 satellites. Thousand Sails satellites are likewise operating at similar altitudes, with that constellation to comprise around 14,000 satellites when completed.
The lack of transparency could also have consequences for the issue of space traffic management. With Starlink, Guowang and Thousand Sails constellations being deployed, the need for a level of coordination and communication is growing.
“Now that China is fully launching its two very large constellation systems, it would really behoove the U.S. and Chinese militaries to have fairly solidly established lines of communication in order to ensure spaceflight safety and a shared understanding of what is considered responsible behavior so that we don’t have inadvertent escalation from unplanned close approaches across constellations,” Samson said.
It remains to be seen if the upcoming second Guowang satellite launch will reveal any new details as to purpose and technical information. The system appears, however, set to have significant implications for global connectivity, the use of low Earth orbit, space traffic management and geopolitics.
