China has successfully launched the first batch of Thousand Sails satellites into orbit. They are needed to create a national system of global satellite Internet.
The Thousand Sails project (formerly known as G60) has been under development by China’s SSST (Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology) since 2021.Its goal is to create a global satellite internet system that should fully compete with the Starlink and OneWeb mega-satellite constellations.
In February, SSST announced it had raised 6.7 billion yuan ($943 million) to build Thousand Sails. The project also has the support of the Chinese government, which wants to secure limited orbital slots and frequencies and provide the military with communications.
The first batch of 18 Thousand Sails satellites was launched on August 6. The satellites were successfully placed into polar orbit by the Long March 6A rocket. SSST plans to deploy a total of 1,296 satellites in the first phase of the system. 648 of them are to be launched by the end of 2025 to provide regional coverage. The fully deployed constellation will consist of more than 14,000 low-orbit vehicles.
Thousand Sails is not the only Chinese project to create an analog of Starlink. A second similar project called Guowang (SatNet) is being implemented by China Satellite Network Group. When fully deployed, this constellation will consist of 13,000 satellites. However, information about this project is extremely rare. It is only known that the first batch of satellites is to be launched in the coming months.
Earlier we told you about the failed launch of a Chinese private rocket.
According to Spacenews
