Not a single one is making a profit, yet 14 companies are scrambling to ring the bell on the A-share market.

On May 17, 2026, in Wenchang, Hainan, the Long March-8 carrier rocket (长征八号运载火箭) sent the 9th batch of Qianfan / Spacesail Constellation (千帆星座) satellites into orbit.

After entering orbit, the total number of Qianfan satellites in orbit exceeded 162.

During the same period, the number of Starlink satellites from SpaceX had already exceeded 9,000.

The ratio is approximately 1:55.

This is not a ratio of technical capability, but a ratio of time. China’s commercial aerospace sector has gone from “rushing into the field” after national policy opened the door to where it is today in at most 10 years; SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) has spent 24 years on space engineering.

Right in this time gap, more than 14 domestic commercial space enterprises are collectively queuing up to sprint for an IPO:

They are all burning money.

They all say they still do not know when they will be profitable.

They still came.

They are at the peak of their momentum, riding on the industry’s foundation, facing the industry’s five major hurdles, and overcoming obstacles. With policy support, increased capital, and an IPO boost, they hope to carve out three light-speed expressways straight to the sky.

Huge losses are the underlying color of the industry.

Opening up LandSpace’s (蓝箭航天) prospectus, the numbers are striking.

From 2022 to the first half of 2025, a period of three and a half years, cumulative revenue was RMB 45.44 million, while cumulative losses exceeded RMB 3.5 billion. The R&D expense ratio has long been higher than 1,000%. In the first half of 2025, the cost of a single rocket launch exceeded RMB 130 million, with corresponding revenue of RMB 35.69 million.

There is another figure that is even more unsettling: in the first half of 2025, sales to a single customer accounted for 98%.

This is not just the situation for LandSpace (蓝箭航天); the entire sector is similar.

The business model has not yet been proven, orders are highly concentrated, revenue is extremely thin, and costs are extremely heavy—but every company’s prospectus is telling the same story: wait for reusable rockets to mature, wait for constellation networking to be completed, wait for the commercial ecosystem to open up; things will be different then.

The problem is, no one knows exactly when “that time” will come.

LandSpace (蓝箭航天) stated directly in its prospectus: “It is expected that it will still be unable to make a profit for some time in the future.”

Five hurdles, each one hard to cross

The first hurdle: cost generation gap.

The current cost of commercial space launch in China is USD 5,000–8,000 per kilogram, while SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is USD 1,500–3,000 per kilogram, a difference of 2–5 times.

The root cause is just one: reusable rockets.

SpaceX has been working on this for over 10 years, with a single Falcon 9 booster reused up to 31 times. The reusable verification for domestic commercial rockets will only begin intensive maiden-flight pushes at the end of 2025.

What is lacking is not the idea, but time.

The second hurdle: technical bottlenecks.

The engine gap is the most intuitive—SpaceX’s Raptor 3 has a single-engine thrust of 280 tons, while the main engine of domestic commercial rockets, Tianque-12A (天鹊-12A), is about 85 tons, a difference of more than three times.

In terms of payload capacity, Starship has a LEO payload capacity of 100–150 tons, while the highest domestic level is about 20–30 tons, a difference of 4–6 times. Core components such as satellite chips and laser communication modules still rely heavily on imports and cannot be bypassed in the short term.

The third hurdle: the frequency and orbital-slot time bomb.

Low Earth orbit satellites follow the International Telecommunication Union’s “first-come, first-served” rule. SpaceX already has over 9,000 satellites in orbit, occupying a large number of prime frequency bands and orbital slots.

China’s two major constellations—Qianfan (千帆) with a planned scale of over 15,000 satellites and Guowang (国网) with a planned scale of about 13,000 satellites—together have nearly 30,000 planned satellites, but the current actual number in orbit is not even a fraction of the opponent’s.

Frequency bands and orbital slots wait for no one. For every year of delay, a batch of high-quality slots is lost. Technological breakthroughs cannot overcome this hurdle; it relies on launch speed.

The fourth hurdle: industrial homogeneity and involution.

More than 20 provinces nationwide have introduced commercial aerospace support policies, with almost every province proposing to “build a 100-billion-level industrial cluster.” The directions are highly overlapping, concentrating on rocket and satellite manufacturing.

The risk of regional resource misallocation is not small; some compare it to the eve of the previous round of PV expansion.

The profit structure is equally fragile: about 65% of revenue relies on low value-added businesses such as emergency communications, transportation, and logistics, while in high-value scenarios such as space manufacturing and space insurance, the participation of private enterprises is extremely low.

The fifth hurdle: shortage in institutional supply.

To this day, China does not have a comprehensive “Space Basic Law,” and core legal frameworks such as launch damage compensation and liability sharing are missing.

In 2025, China conducted 92 space launches throughout the year, with private rocket enterprises completing 16 of them: CAS Space 5, Galactic Energy 6, LandSpace 3, i-Space 1, and Orienspace (东方空间) 1, accounting for less than 18%.

There is also a mismatch in the capital structure: the R&D cycle for commercial aerospace is 5–10 years, while the average exit cycle for domestic venture capital is 3–5 years, leaving an unbridgeable time gap in between.

Three roads, every one leads to Rome

1. Reusable rockets break the cost ceiling.

If launch costs cannot be brought down, a closed business loop is out of the question.

SpaceX’s flywheel is already spinning: reusable rockets have brought down launch costs → Starlink’s large-scale networking → Starlink’s revenue in 2025 is about USD 10.6 billion → this money is reinvested into rocket and Starship R&D. The entire system is self-sustaining.

China needs the same flywheel. What was missing was the first step, and that step is happening now.

In December 2025, LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 (朱雀三号) completed its maiden orbital flight. Although the first-stage recovery was not successful, flight verification data has already been obtained. Tianlong-3 is currently in progress, and Hyperbola-3 just completed its sea recovery drop test in May 2026. According to industry estimates, once first-stage recovery stabilizes, the cost per kilogram is expected to drop from RMB 14,000–20,000 to under RMB 10,000, entering the same tier as Falcon 9.

It is not a question of whether China has it, but when stable mass production will be achieved.

2. From “courier” to “logistics empire.”

The current situation of domestic commercial rocket enterprises is quite awkward—they transport satellites for others but do not participate in the revenue distribution of satellite operations.

SpaceX runs a courier company, owns all the goods to be shipped, and also operates the world’s largest cargo storage system—Starlink (星链).

Qianfan (千帆) and Guowang (国网) are led by state-backed players, while private rocket enterprises remain capacity providers rather than ecosystem builders.

There are two solutions. First, some leading rocket companies are starting to extend downstream, laying out satellite manufacturing and data services; both Galactic Energy (星河动力) and Space Pioneer (天兵科技) are advancing this. Second, referencing NASA’s COTS model, the government shares enterprise R&D risks through long-term procurement contracts, while enterprises retain technology and intellectual property rights to sell freely in the market.

When transplanted into the Chinese context, the core action is to allow private rocket companies to offset satellite data distribution rights with launch services, so they can truly participate in the downstream revenue of constellation operations, rather than just serving as capacity providers. This path is more complex than technological breakthroughs; beyond money, there is also a lack of proactive design in industrial policy.

3. The window for policy breakthroughs has opened.

In November 2025, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) released the “Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality and Safe Development of Commercial Spaceflight (2025–2027),” which includes 22 measures. It explicitly proposes competitively opening national scientific research projects to private enterprises, promoting the integration of civil and commercial spaceflight standards, and achieving high-quality development of commercial spaceflight by 2027.

This is the first time that the China National Space Administration (国家航天局) has incorporated commercial aerospace into the overall national space development layout, committing to opening up resources and channels within the system to private enterprises.

The 2026 Government Work Report elevated commercial spaceflight to the status of an “emerging pillar industry.” It has been included for three consecutive years, with its status rising year by year: emerging field → emerging industry → emerging pillar industry.

The intensity of this policy signal is something SpaceX has never enjoyed. How much of the policy can be implemented depends on the push at the execution level. But the window has indeed opened.

Is this wave of IPOs an accelerator or a filter?

Many people interpret this IPO wave as a collective debut of commercial aerospace “achieving success and fame,” but they have understood it backwards.

This batch of companies is sprinting toward the capital market not because their business models have been validated, but because their reusable technology is about to enter the most critical validation window; the industry needs ammunition to survive this.

Going public is wartime financing, not a celebration banquet.

Once capital enters, differentiation will accelerate.

Some institutions predict that in the rocket sector, only 3–5 companies may ultimately survive, and the satellite manufacturing sector is similar. Capital will not endlessly support every enterprise, or even every sector, that is telling the same story.

For companies without a technological inflection point, the public market after listing may be even colder than the primary market.

Epilogue

Between China’s commercial aerospace and SpaceX, it is not a question of whether China can catch up.

It is a question of whether the catch-up speed can cross the critical point before the orbital window closes.

Starlink (星链) has 9,000 satellites in orbit, and Qianfan (千帆) has 162 satellites in orbit.

The verification of reusable rockets’ maiden flights has been completed, but the timeline for stable mass production is unknown.

Frequency and orbital resources are counting down, not waiting in line.

But policy intensity, capital density, and the scale of engineers—when these three factors are put together, the catch-up curve of China’s commercial aerospace is indeed steepening.

The question is: is it fast enough?

Appendix: What is NASA’s COTS model?

The full name of COTS is Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (商业轨道运输服务). NASA launched this program in 2006, and the core logic is:

NASA no longer builds its own rockets, but instead spends money to purchase services, while using contract funds to help private companies share R&D risks.

The specific operation is: NASA signs long-term procurement contracts with companies such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation (轨道科学公司), paying in advance—but there is a key clause: technology and intellectual property rights belong to the enterprises, not NASA. NASA has just become one of the clients, not the only client.

After securing the COTS contract, SpaceX used this money plus its own funds to jointly develop Falcon 9 (猎鹰9号), and then sold Falcon 9 to NASA, commercial satellite clients, and the global market simultaneously. NASA exchanged the contract for affordable launch capacity, while SpaceX exchanged the contract for the funds needed to survive, all while retaining the intellectual property rights in its own hands—this is a risk-sharing mechanism with mutual benefits.