Military

China's Landspace Technology May Be SpaceX Competition

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: January 16, 2017 6:44 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 3:50 pm

SpaceX two-stage Falcon rocket launched 10 satellites and then its first stage section returned to earth. At this point, it would appear the company has no worth competitors. This may not be entirely true. China’s Landspace Technology will soon launch a satellite for Danish company Gomspace. The launch will not happen until 2018, and there is no guarantee it will not explode either on the platform or in flight.

The People’s Daily reports:

Landspace CEO Zhang Changwu said his company could not have won recognition from the overseas client without decades of efforts by Chinese workers in the aerospace industry, which has been developing for 60 years.

The total value of the global aerospace market could hit 485 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, according to market estimates, with the market value in China alone reaching 800 billion yuan (116 billion U.S. dollars) during the 2016-2020 period.

If China follows earlier practices in the realm of technology, it may favor a company owned and operated by a local company. This could block SpaceX and other international satellite rocket firms from establishing a foot hold there . China is already well down the road of manned flight, another SpaceX target. The nation put two astronauts in space late last year with a Long March rocket. From there, they moved into the Tiangong-2 space station. They later returned to earth safely

SpaceX is not the only U.S. company which faces competition from Landspace Technology. Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) have a project which competes with SpaceX.

As is true with many other products and services, China may be the largest market for everything from aircraft to electric cars. In the meantime, competition in the rocket business should be anxious about the future of Landspace Technology.