In December 2025, SpaceX internally revealed that it will launch an IPO in 2026 with a valuation of USD 1.5 trillion and expected annual revenue of USD 22–24 billion. Its Starlink revenue is already approaching NASA’s full-year budget. Hailed as “the largest IPO in human history,” this move is heating up global competition in the space economy. At the same time, China’s commercial spaceflight is rising rapidly. Since its start in 2015, the market size is expected to exceed RMB 2.5 trillion (approximately USD 347 billion) in 2025, achieving a leap from “following” to “running alongside.” Satellites from multiple countries are “ridesharing” on Chinese rockets, the Hainan Commercial Launch Site has completed universal stands, and Zhuque-3 has completed vertical takeoff and landing tests—signs that China’s space economy ecosystem is accelerating into shape. From being led by the “national team” to “nationwide joint progress,” from breakthroughs at single points to the co-building of systems, China’s commercial spaceflight now stands at a historic inflection point.
Policy Dividends Ignite an Industrial Singularity
In November 2025, the China National Space Administration issued the Action Plan for Promoting the High-Quality and Safe Development of Commercial Spaceflight (2025–2027), and for the first time set up a Commercial Spaceflight Department, marking the advent of a dedicated regulatory era for China’s commercial spaceflight. Dubbed within the industry as a “new space infrastructure roadmap,” the document explicitly proposes that by 2027 the commercial spaceflight industrial ecosystem should operate with high efficiency and coordination, and its scale should be significantly enlarged.
The policy tailwind quickly transmitted to the capital markets. According to Choice data, Aerospace Development rose to its limit on 7 out of 11 trading days in November, while Raycus Defense hit the limit on 4 out of 5 days; over 20 concept stocks including Tongyu Communications and Qianzhao Optoelectronics also hit their ceiling. Behind this wave of limit-ups is the resonance of policy catalysis with industrial progress—Aerospace Technology’s 2025 commercial spaceflight revenue is expected to reach several tens of millions of RMB (approximately USD 3–13 million), and the value of structural parts per rocket at Chaoge Co., Ltd. is about RMB 10 million (approximately USD 1.39 million); some links have already entered the phase of delivering results.
Even more noteworthy is the planned establishment of the National Commercial Spaceflight Development Fund, injecting “patient capital” into this “cash-burning” industry. According to the Action Plan, the fund will guide social capital to make long-term, strategic, and value investments, focusing on key links such as reusable technology verification and the construction of launch-service standards systems. This “policy + market” dual-wheel drive model is reshaping the valuation logic of commercial spaceflight.
Local governments are equally enthusiastic. Within two years, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area will allocate over RMB 4 billion (approximately USD 0.56 billion) to commercial spaceflight, building a “Beijing Rocket Avenue” shared R&D base; Bengbu, Anhui has brought in Deep Blue Aerospace and Jiuzhou Yunjian, striving to build an important manufacturing base in the Yangtze River Delta by 2035; Haiyang, Shandong is building a “Space Avenue,” constructing a complete ecosystem of sea launches and final assembly manufacturing. This three-dimensional policy support from the central to the local level is pushing China’s commercial spaceflight onto the fast track of scaled development.
Technological Breakthroughs Open the Cost Ceiling
China’s commercial spaceflight is undergoing a qualitative change from “usable” to “well-usable.” In 2024, LandSpace completed China’s first vertical takeoff and landing recovery test at the 10-kilometer level; on December 3, 2025, the reusable Zhuque-3 rocket completed its maiden flight. Although this mission did not achieve the planned recovery of the first stage, it verified the correctness and rationality of Zhuque-3’s full process of testing, launch, and flight, as well as the compatibility of system interfaces, and obtained key engineering data under the rocket’s real flight state—laying an important foundation for subsequent launch services and reliable sub-stage recovery and reusability. The chain reaction of such technological breakthroughs is revolutionary—according to Deep Blue Aerospace’s estimates, reusability can reduce the cost per launch from the “hundreds of millions of RMB” level to the “tens of millions of RMB” level (several tens of millions of RMB, approximately USD 3–13 million), a 70% reduction compared with traditional expendable rockets.
This cliff-like cost decline is activating market demand. At present, the launch cost of Chinese commercial rockets has fallen to RMB 50,000–60,000 per kilogram (approximately USD 6,944–8,333 per kg), and with the large-scale application of liquid rockets, the cost is expected to drop by a further 30%. In comparison, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is quoted on the international market at USD 3,000–5,000 per kilogram; Chinese companies already have an advantage in price competition. This cost advantage is directly translating into orders—Lijian-1 completed a “one rocket, nine satellites” mission, three of which were foreign satellites; Galactic Energy signed launch agreements with Germany’s FEM-Composites and Malaysia’s Distant Blue; GalaxySpace reached cooperation with Thailand’s True Corporation.
Unlike SpaceX’s integrated “satellites, vehicles, launch sites, applications” ecosystem, China’s commercial spaceflight has blazed a path that balances “specialized and new” with “whole-chain integration.” Upstream, Sunway Communication has become the exclusive supplier of connectors for Starlink’s ground terminals, with satellite business revenue expected to exceed RMB 1.5 billion (approximately USD 0.21 billion) in 2025; Western Materials supplies niobium-alloy engine components, with value per rocket of RMB 5–10 million (approximately USD 0.69–1.39 million); aerospace-grade insulation materials from Transtherm, certified by SpaceX, are being steadily exported.
Midstream manufacturing shows a pattern of “national participation.” The state teams—CASC and CASIC—lead high-lift rockets, while private companies such as Galactic Energy and CAS Space focus on segmented markets. In 2024, China completed 43 commercial launches, of which private rockets contributed 17. Even more noteworthy is how new technologies like 3D printing and digital manufacturing are reshaping production—GalaxySpace’s Nantong factory, aided by intelligent robots, has shortened satellite assembly time by 70%, with an annual capacity of 100–150 satellites.
The downstream applications market is equally vibrant. In 2024, revenue in China’s satellite operations and applications industry reached RMB 80.4 billion (approximately USD 11.17 billion), with an average annual growth rate of over 15% in the past five years. From Anhui farmers using satellite data for precision irrigation, to “Luojia-1” mapping night-economy heat maps, to CloudWalk’s meteorological constellation providing 15,000 occultation profiles per day, commercial spaceflight is permeating hundreds of industries. As Wang Wenjie of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation put it: “China’s commercial spaceflight faces a core contradiction of ‘exploding demand, insufficient capacity,’ but that also signals massive room for growth.”
Capital Markets Welcome the “Space Age”
The year 2025 has become the IPO inaugural year for China’s commercial spaceflight. In June, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released opinions on setting up a Sci-Tech Growth Tier on the STAR Market, explicitly supporting commercial spaceflight companies to adopt the fifth set of listing standards. Subsequently, CAS Space and LandSpace initiated listing counseling, while Space Pioneer and Galactic Energy completed IPO counseling filings. According to Xinding Capital data, more than 20 commercial spaceflight companies are currently in the IPO queue, and a cluster of listings is expected in 2026.
There is internal logic to this capitalization process. China’s commercial spaceflight market size grew from RMB 1.02 trillion (approximately USD 142 billion) in 2020 to RMB 2.34 trillion (approximately USD 325 billion) in 2024, a compound annual growth rate of 23.5%, and is expected to reach RMB 7.8–10 trillion (approximately USD 1.08–1.39 trillion) by 2030. Correspondingly, the global space economy surpassed USD 613 billion in 2024, with commercial spaceflight accounting for 78%. Faced with such certain growth, capital needs new value anchors.
A deeper change lies in the restructuring of valuation systems. Traditional PE valuations no longer fit commercial spaceflight; the market has begun using a three-dimensional model of “orders + technology + resources.” Sunway Communication, by virtue of being a Starlink supplier, has obtained a 40× PS valuation; SRE Materials, thanks to breakthroughs in rocket engine materials, has seen its market value triple compared with its IPO; China Satcom, which holds a scarce operating license, enjoys a resource monopoly premium. This valuation restructuring is pushing commercial spaceflight from “concept speculation” toward “value investing.”
A Three-Year Window Will Determine the Competitive Landscape
The next three years will be a strategic window for China’s commercial spaceflight. According to CNSA’s forecast, around 2030 China needs to achieve about 200 launches per year and an annual payload-to-orbit capacity of 1,000 tons. This implies that current launch capacity must increase by 5–10 times, generating procurement demand in the hundreds of billions of RMB. More urgently, after SpaceX’s planned 2026 IPO, it will accelerate expansion, and international competition will become white-hot.
Technological iteration is speeding up this process. In 2025, multiple reusable rockets—including Zhuque-3, Tianlong-3, and Gravity-2—will make their maiden flights; mega-constellations such as Qianfan and GW will enter intensive networking phases; Phase II of the Hainan Commercial Launch Site will begin, and sea launches will achieve “two launches per week.” This resonance of technology, demand, and capacity will push China’s commercial spaceflight into the world’s first tier around 2027.
The ultimate value of commercial spaceflight lies in its application ecosystem. According to Taibo Think Tank projections, China’s satellite internet market will grow from RMB 64.8 billion (approximately USD 9.0 billion) in 2024 to RMB 151.2 billion (approximately USD 21.0 billion) by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 15%. But that is only the beginning—once low-Earth-orbit constellations achieve global coverage, they will give rise to new formats such as space computing power, space manufacturing, and space agriculture.
Some frontier explorations are already underway. The PIE-Engine “Tianquan” large model from Aerospace Macro-vision enables intelligent interpretation of remote-sensing data; GalaxySpace’s experimental satellite has completed direct-to-cell communication; Deep Blue Aerospace plans to carry out space 3D-printing experiments. As Yang Shaoxian of the China Center for Information Industry Development said: “In the era of new space infrastructure, new formats such as ‘aerospace +’ are sprouting, and space tourism and commercial lunar exploration are expected to see policy breakthroughs within 5–10 years.”
China’s Opportunity in Global Layout
“Going global” has become a must-choose path for China’s commercial spaceflight. The Action Plan released in November 2025 for the first time explicitly encourages enterprises to participate in international competition, forming a sharp contrast with SpaceX’s intensifying monopoly. The former CEO of Europe’s Arianespace publicly accused SpaceX of constituting a “de facto space monopoly,” offering an opening for Chinese enterprises to enter international markets.
More critically, the Chinese model is being replicated overseas. Yuanxin Satellite is promoting overseas applications for the Qianfan constellation in cooperation with companies in Thailand, Brazil, and Malaysia; GalaxySpace is providing satellite network services to countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative; CAS Space is lowering the entry threshold for emerging markets through “rideshare launches.” This combined advantage of technology + cost + service is pushing China’s commercial spaceflight to center stage in global competition.
Looking back from the vantage point of 2025, China’s commercial spaceflight has covered in ten years the ground that took developed countries thirty years; looking ahead, this RMB 2.5 trillion (approximately USD 347 billion) market is expanding at more than 20% per year. When reusable technology matures, constellations are networked, and applications explode, the space economy will no longer be the stuff of science fiction, but humanity’s next trillion-dollar industry. In this voyage across the starry sea, China’s commercial spaceflight is moving from follower to runner-alongside, and may even become a leader in certain fields.
After all, when rocket launches become routine, when satellite manufacturing is standardized like car production, and when space tourism enters the consumer’s everyday shopping list, the most thrilling business story of this era will only have just written its prologue.
[Disclaimer]: The above content reflects analysis of publicly available information, expert insights, and BCC research. It does not constitute investment advice. BCC is not responsible for any losses resulting from reliance on the views expressed herein. Investors should exercise caution.