This Was Supposed to Be the Year China Started Catching Up With SpaceX

China’s two biggest networks have deployed less than 1 percent of their planned satellites, records show, a measure of how far they are falling behind Elon Musk’s company SpaceX for dominance in space communications. Satellites in low Earth orbit, up to 1,200 miles above the planet, are increasingly seen as essential for driverless cars, drone warfare and military surveillance. China regards Starlink as a military threat, and Chinese companies have invested heavily in two huge networks, with nearly 27,000 satellites planned between them. One reason for the unexpectedly slow pace is that the Chinese companies have not cleared a key engineering hurdle. The first network, or megaconstellation, Qianfan, was scheduled to have about 650 satellites in space by the end of 2025. But records show that the company behind the network, Shanghai Spacesail Technologies Co., has put only 90 satellites in orbit since its launches began in August 2024. The other megaconstellation, Guowang, is even farther behind. Despite plans to launch about 13,000 satellites within the next decade, it has 34 in orbit. SpaceX has about 8,000 Starlink satellites in orbit and is expanding its lead every month, according to data from U.S. Space Force and CelesTrak, a nonprofit group that gathers space data.