With China successfully landing a rover on Mars, can the private sector provide necessary development to build on the country’s space ambitions?
Over the weekend, China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft, currently in orbit around Mars, dropped its lander and rover Zhurong on Mars, becoming the third nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the surface on the planet after the United States and Russia.
An entry capsule enclosing Zhurong separated from the Tianwen-1 orbiter on May 15. After several hours it entered Mars’s atmosphere at an altitude of 125 kilometers. The capsule then hurtled towards the surface, protected by a heat shield. As the probe closed in on Mars, it released a huge parachute to slow its progress, and then used rocket boosters to brake.
It is China’s first mission to Mars, which joins several other countries with active missions on the planet. NASA’s Perseverance rover, which arrived in February, is several hundred kilometers away from the landing site. NASA’s Curiosity rover has been on the surface of the planet since 2012. Several spacecraft are also circling Mars, including the United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter, which also arrived in February.
China’s rover is expected to spend at least 90 Mars days, or about 93 Earth days, on the planet.
"It is obviously a major boost for China’s space and scientific community," says Jimmie Jeremejev, managing director at LehmanBush. "But one area that we’re expecting to see more development from China going forward are domestic commercial businesses, which are still in their infancy compared to their U.S. or European counterparts."
Whereas commercial firms SpaceX and Blue Origin — which are owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, respectively — have been making international headlines in recent years, China’s space activity has been overwhelmingly dominated by two state-owned enterprises: China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
CASC is the main contractor for the Chinese space program, and designs, develops and manufactures a range of spacecraft, launch vehicles, strategic and tactical missile systems, and ground equipment. CASIC also designs, develops and manufactures the similar equipment to CASC, and is also the largest maker of missiles in China.
But sole control over the marketplace in China has changed over the past decade as the costs of making satellites and launching rockets plunged. There are now nearly 80 commercial space companies operating in China — the majority focus on satellite manufacturing, while other companies provide services in areas such as the launch sector, remote sensing operations and communications.
"There are a handful that don’t fall under the SOE system, and are not receiving funding directly from the government," says Bobby Afshar, managing director at LehmanBush. "But China’s commercial space sector in the coming 5– 10 years depends on whether these companies can develop globally competitive products and services."
Many of the aerospace firms have been founded within the last five years.
OneSpace, the Beijing-based private firm that launches microsatellites and nanosatellites, is responsible for launching China's first private rocket in 2018. That first rocket came with a $43 million USD investment in Series B funding in the same year, led by CICC Jiatai Equity Fund
Specializing in small satellites and satellite-based services, Beijing startup Spacety launched its Hisea-1 satellite in December 2020, which uses 2D radar images to build 3D reconstructions of terrestrial landscapes — also known as the world’s first commercial C-band Smallsat Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing satellite — and began releasing imagery in January 2021.
Beijing rocket firm Galactic Energy successfully sent a small satellite into orbit in November 2020 — only the second private company of China to successfully put a satellite in orbit — with the launch of its Ceres-1 vehicle, which deployed the 50-kilogram Tianqi-11 satellite, sending it into a 500-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit. Galactic Energy’s successful launch came on the heels of receiving roughly $30 million USD in Series A round funding, led by investment firm Huaqiang Chuangtou.
In March 2020, Beijing-based MinoSpace secured about $14.2 million USD in Series A funding, led by investment firm Billionhome Capital, which will go towards the development and launch of satellites with masses of 200 kilograms and above.
"What we are seeing is a number of space companies receiving investment, and a number of small but significant steps Chinese aerospace firms taking to build on getting into space," says Jeremejev. "That will continue, and it will be some time before any of these firms can demonstrate profitability."