China’s Second-Tier Satellite Manufacturers

It’s no secret that China has been launching satellites at a dramatically increasing rate over the past several years. According to data from Orbital Gateway Consulting, China successfully orbited 30 satellites in 2017, and is on pace for well over 200 satellites in 2023 (in 2022 the country successfully launched 182).

Today, most of these satellites are still built by a handful of usual suspects that have historically dominated China’s space industry, namely the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology (SAST), and the two companies’ various subsidiaries. Other players such as CGSTL and CAS SECM have emerged as contenders over the past decade (CGSTL being founded in 2014, SECM being created as a spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the 2000s), but even these two players come from well-established space industry pedigrees.