2026 marks the 70th anniversary of China’s space program.
70 years ago, China began building its space capabilities. In 1970, its first artificial Earth satellite, Dongfanghong-1, was successfully launched from Jiuquan, making China the fifth country in the world, after the now-defunct Soviet Union, the US, France, and Japan, to independently develop and launch an artificial satellite.
China’s space sector has since moved toward a future defined by interconnected satellite networks. Its development model has also changed, from concentrating national resources on major missions to one shaped by both state guidance and market-driven innovation.
This year, satellite internet was incorporated into China’s five-year plan and included in the national system of 109 major engineering projects.
More importantly, China’s commercial space sector is now at a turning point, shifting from investment-driven growth to revenue-driven growth.
China has become one of the world’s largest commercial space economies, ranking among global leaders in launch scale, satellite constellation deployment, and industry chain capabilities. The next test is commercial delivery.
“Commercial space is, by nature, an infrastructure industry. And all infrastructure industries inevitably go through three stages: capability building, scale building, and value realization,” Geespace CEO Tony Wang told 36Kr.
In Wang’s view, the dividing line in commercial space is not the number of satellites in orbit, or whether a constellation has completed deployment. It is whether the constellation has entered a cycle of value realization.
Take commercial satellites as an example.
Capability building solves the problem of moving from zero to one, with a focus on technical breakthroughs and engineering validation.
Scale building solves the coverage problem, moving from basic existence to broad deployment. The focus is improving satellite production efficiency while reducing satellite launch costs and service application costs.
Value realization is the destination of all infrastructure industries. It marks the point at which earlier investment begins to translate into sustainable commercial returns and social benefits. It is also the route through which infrastructure industries generate their own cash flow and enter a virtuous cycle. Space infrastructure is no exception.
The same applies to individual companies. Only when a company completes the transition from capability building to value realization can its technology be said to have passed market validation, found paying scenarios, and begun to form a positive business loop that can support high growth.
Geespace is one of the few commercial space companies that has completed the first two stages and begun entering the value realization stage.
In terms of scaled service, Geespace completed deployment of its 64-satellite constellation in September 2025. Its Geesatcom system then became China’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation with global scaled service capability. It can support about 340 million communication sessions per day, serve 20 million users globally, and provide real-time communication coverage anywhere on Earth’s surface, excluding the polar regions.
More importantly, while much of the industry remains focused on constellation deployment, Geespace is also working to validate its commercialization capabilities.
Wang told 36Kr that Geespace has established commercial partnerships with telecommunications operators in more than 20 countries, promoting local services through its LEO satellite constellation. The company has obtained intended orders in several markets, including the Middle East and South America, and plans to push these orders toward delivery in 2026. This signals a shift from project-based delivery to a recurring service revenue model.
Compared with most players in commercial space, Geespace is somewhat unusual. In the industry’s early stage, when many companies were focused on speed, Wang led his team onto a less common path.
In 2014, China’s State Council issued guidelines on innovation investment and financing mechanisms in key areas, explicitly encouraging private capital to participate in national civil space infrastructure construction for the first time. This marked the beginning of China’s commercial space sector.
That same year, Wang, who had long worked within the aerospace system and participated in multiple major national space missions, started a business while retaining his official position and temporarily leaving his post. He founded Space Ok, becoming part of China’s first generation of commercial satellite entrepreneurs.
In 2018, guided by the idea of “letting satellite technology serve the public,” Wang founded Geespace and turned his attention to the broader field of commercial LEO satellite constellations.
Unlike the industry’s common focus on high-speed, high-bandwidth consumer services, Geespace chose a medium- and low-speed LEO satellite path. This market has more concentrated users, stronger willingness to pay, and steadier demand, with revenue closer to long-term infrastructure service income. In effect, Wang chose an infrastructure subscription business.
At its core, a LEO constellation can serve as space infrastructure for the internet-of-things era. It does not pursue extreme transmission speed. Instead, it emphasizes long satellite life in orbit, seamless global coverage, and stable, reliable communications. This differentiated path can shorten the payback period compared with LEO high-speed communications constellations, while leaving room for sustained profitability.
To secure that long-term value, companies must embed themselves deeply in ecosystems involving national operators and industry customers. That places high demands on strategic resolve and long-term technical accumulation.
Once the infrastructure is built, however, it can form barriers and generate stable returns. That creates the basis for moving from cash burn to self-sustaining cash generation.
In 2023, five years after its founding, Geespace completed the first automotive-grade R&D and mass production application of satellite communications technology. Working with Zeekr, it integrated in-vehicle satellite communications terminals and services into the Zeekr 001 FR, marking the formal entry of satellite communications technology into automotive use and showing that it had begun to acquire industrial-grade implementation capability.
China sells more than 30 million vehicles each year, making automotive connectivity a large potential market for satellite communications.
More broadly, Geespace has completed commercial validation tests in China with more than 20 companies across industries. It has promoted satellite integration and innovation in construction machinery, marine fisheries, emergency communications, energy and water conservancy, logistics and transportation, low-altitude mobility, and other fields.
The question is why Geespace.
Geespace’s path to value realization did not happen overnight. Wang described it as the result of accumulated capabilities that produced qualitative change over time. These capabilities have become five advantages that could help Geespace endure industry cycles and enter the value realization stage earlier than many peers:
The effect of this combined approach is now accelerating. Wang told 36Kr that Geespace will continue launching satellites this year and complete the full deployment of 72 satellites in its first phase. At that point, the system’s daily communication capacity is expected to rise to 450 million sessions. Over the next three years, Geespace aims to reach two million connected users, further opening the global LEO satellite constellation market.
According to Counterpoint Research, global satellite IoT connections are expected to rise from 3.6 million in 2020 to 41 million in 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 28%.
In 2026, China’s commercial space sector is entering a faster and more certain stage of growth.
Capital has already signaled confidence. According to a 2026 report by Bestla Analysis, China’s commercial space companies completed 193 primary market financing events from 2025 to the first quarter of 2026, with disclosed financing reaching RMB 21.968 billion (USD 3.2 billion). The IPO processes of several leading companies have also accelerated.
The combination of industrial implementation and capital enthusiasm shows that China’s commercial space sector is moving from early technical validation into a more certain growth phase built around scaled commercial implementation.
Unlike in the US, where space ventures are largely led by private companies and develop more freely through the market, the certainty of China’s commercial space sector is closely tied to national growth strategies.
The space domain has become another field of technological competition. China’s progress will help determine whether it can define standards and gain a say in resource allocation for next-generation space infrastructure. This is one reason capital continues to commit to the long-cycle, asset-heavy space sector.
This is also where Geespace’s deeper value lies. Low- and medium-speed satellites are not meant to let every user watch short videos on their phone in the mountains or the desert. Their value lies in stable, reliable, and secure global data assurance: keeping smart vehicles connected, keeping cargo ships on course, and supporting real-time safety monitoring for cross-border energy pipelines. The aim is to become a stabilizing layer in national infrastructure strategy.
Within this system, Geespace’s role is not only that of a constellation operator, but also that of a global satellite communications service provider. Its real value lies in becoming part of the foundation for global critical infrastructure.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Xiao Xi for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.79 = USD 1 based on estimates as of May 28, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.
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