On the day Shenzhou-20 blasted off, carrying three Chinese astronauts to the Tiangong space station, Shanghai launched an ambitious plan to “lead the charge” in developing China’s commercial space sector.
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Against the backdrop of an intensifying technology race with the United States, China’s financial hub plans to boost the annual value of its commercial space industry’s output to 100 billion yuan (US$13.7 billion) by 2027, with the ability to build 100 rockets, 1,000 satellites and a million application terminals a year, according to the plan unveiled on Thursday by two municipal government departments.
In building its answer to American space giants such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, Shanghai hopes to take advantage of its position as the home base of Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, the state-owned manufacturer of the C919 airliner, and capitalise on the synergy between commercial space programmes and civil aviation.
Commercial space services accounted for US$131.8 billion of US gross domestic product in 2022, according to a report published by the US Department of Commerce in January.
Shanghai is already home to Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology, which began building a satellite constellation network last year that is designed to challenge SpaceX’s Starlink.
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The plan says the city will hand out subsidies of up to 300 million yuan for companies developing commercial rockets, satellites, terminals or other core products. For companies looking to upgrade their manufacturing capacities, Shanghai plans to cover 10 per cent of the cost, up to 100 million yuan per project.