Guowang

China is building two networks at once.

Guowang had 234 satellites up as of September, with more than 13,000 planned.

Qianfan, also called SpaceSail, has 200 in orbit and plans more than 15,000.

Brazil, the country that froze Starlink's bank accounts, approved up to 324 Chenfan satellites in February, with service expected before the end of this year.

March 12th saw two launches out of China.

First we had a Long March 8A which was carrying nine Guowang satellites.

That is the equivalent of China's Starlink or at least it's one of their versions of Starlink.

We don't know what's really going to end up winning but they've certainly launched more satellites into that constellation than any of the others.

This is similar to Starlink, but again, different.

And on April 8th, we also saw Long March 6A from Taiyuan carrying six Guowang satellites.

And those are the Chinese national, like the official Chinese government's version of Starlink.

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And this is another two-stage medium lift kerosene oxygen launcher.

And it's only ever launched one type of payload, the Guowang internet satellites.

It's had seven launches in total, three this year.

Now, there is the 12A variant, and it's practically a different rocket altogether, switching to methane for both stages.

16th of August, we have a long March 12 launching out of Wangchang, carrying SatNet LEO Group 24.

That is the 24th batch of satellites in Guowang, which is, of course, aiming for like 13,000 satellites.

They have a long way to go.

And note, by the way, this is different from the 12A and the 12B, which are aiming for reusability.

I've taken flights where you get really fast streaming video on flights that you didn't have before, but also for military use, like for Ukraine and its war with Russia.

Now China is racing to build its own massive satellite constellations, including SpaceSail, which is backed by the Shanghai government, and another system called GuoWang run by state-owned SatNet.

So why are these satellite internet constellations so strategically important and how far behind Starlink is China?

Listen, on this one, Kyle, the first thing I would say is there's a commercial anytime you get on a plane with Starlink talking about its reliability.