Beijing plans satellite town to expand China’s commercial space industry

Beijing is building a Satellite Town meant to do more than house a cluster of companies. By the second half of 2026, the core area is set to be completed, giving the capital a purpose-built base for satellite manufacturers, operators, launch coordination and the supply chains that support them as commercial launches have grown to more than 60% of all space launches in China.

The project shows how Beijing is trying to turn aerospace into a scalable industrial system rather than a collection of isolated state-backed programs and start-ups. City officials said in 2025 that Beijing already had more than 300 commercial space companies and hosted more than half of China’s core aerospace research and development institutions. The capital also drew 1 billion yuan in investment for seven commercial space and low-altitude economy firms in 2024, while 46 Beijing companies landed on the 2024 China Top 100 Commercial Space Companies list, nearly half the national total.

That expansion has been paired with deliberate industrial planning. Beijing described its commercial space layout as Southern Rockets, Northern Satellites, with rocket work concentrated in E-Town and Fengtai District and satellite-related activity spread across other parts of the city. In July 2024, Beijing launched the Rocket Street project in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, better known as E-Town, where officials said more than 70 aerospace companies were already clustered, including 75% of China’s private rocket makers.

The launch record points to a sector that is moving from ambition to routine production. Private commercial rocket enterprises headquartered in Beijing carried out 13 launches in 2023, and Beijing-based firms completed 12 commercial launches in 2024, about one-fifth of China’s total. A 2026 Beijing commercial space exhibition drew more than 300 commercial aerospace companies, underscoring how quickly the market has widened around satellite internet, low-Earth orbit services, launch vehicles and downstream applications.

Capital markets are now part of that expansion. Space Pioneer and Galactic Energy have moved toward initial public offerings, while CAS Space, Landspace and Yixin Aerospace have also advanced listing plans. That push into public markets suggests Beijing wants commercial space to mature into an industry with durable financing, not just policy support. China’s space authority reinforced that shift in late 2025 by creating a new department dedicated to commercial space, adding a more specialized regulatory layer to a sector that now stretches across research, manufacturing, launches and applications.

Taken together, the Satellite Town signals a broader strategic wager: China is trying to institutionalize its commercial-space boom, concentrate talent and production around Beijing, and build the industrial depth needed to compete in a domain that is both economically valuable and strategically sensitive.