"Space WeChat" is here! Space has never been so lively.

Space has never been so bustling. Streaks of dazzling light cut across the sky.

Fully loaded and jostling for positions, China's satellite launch sites are extremely busy. One has to make a reservation and queue up half a year in advance. According to the author's incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2025, over 50 launches have been completed in China, with a frequency about twice that of the same period last year.

It's not just satellites that are riding rockets; satellite stocks are also soaring. In the A-share market at the end of August and early September, the satellite communication sector witnessed a wave of limit-up gains: Sanwei Communication, Aerospace Huanyu, Wantong Development, and Broadcom Integration all hit the daily limit, while China Satcom, Shanghai Hugong, etc. either hit the limit or approached it.

Behind the "acceleration" of satellite launches is the arrival of an "inflection point." In 2025, satellite communication is facing a "double inflection point" in terms of policy and technology.

The IT Times exclusively learned that the issuance of satellite internet licenses is entering the countdown.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on Optimizing Business Access to Promote the Development of the Satellite Communication Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Nineteen Articles on Satellite Communication"), clearly stating that it is necessary to simplify the access process for satellite communication services, optimize the approval of equipment network access licenses, and loosen the constraints on the industrial chain. At the same time, it supports the exploration of new satellite communication services and organizes commercial trials of satellite Internet of Things. This provides institutional guarantee for telecom operators and private commercial aerospace enterprises to quickly enter the satellite communication market.

Space has never been so close to us. Satellite communication is gradually changing from a "luxury" to a "daily necessity."

First of all, we should thank Elon Musk for conducting rounds of user education in the field of satellite communication. Secondly, we should thank Huawei Mate 60 for opening the era of direct satellite connection for domestic consumer-grade mobile phones. After that, car manufacturers such as Geely and BYD also started to try direct satellite connection for consumer-grade cars.

Source: IT Times

Two consumer-grade markets are rapidly pushing satellite Internet from the experimental stage to large-scale commercial operation. However, these consumer-grade satellite communication application scenarios mainly rely on high-orbit satellites.

How will China's low-orbit satellite communication develop?

From new energy vehicles to brain-computer interfaces, attempts in various cutting-edge fields have proven that it is difficult to surpass Elon Musk's technical path. Taking a different route may be a wise choice.

The low-orbit satellite Internet first needs to solve the problem of continuous coverage. Therefore, the constellations of the low-orbit satellite Internet often involve a networking scale of tens of thousands of satellites. Currently, Elon Musk's Starlink has more than 8,000 satellites in orbit. There is not much time left for domestic constellations. Constellations of "national teams" such as China SatNet are catching up globally.

Source: pexels

From policy guidance to industrial practice, we can see that another space network - the satellite Internet of Things is rising and may be implemented faster than the satellite Internet.

The low-orbit satellite Internet of Things constellation does not have high requirements for bandwidth. Therefore, 100 satellites can achieve global coverage, and the investment return cycle is shorter. This also means that the threshold for public use will be significantly reduced. The communication fees of the satellite Internet of Things are only 1% of those of traditional satellite communication.

In terms of the industrial ecosystem, the satellite Internet of Things makes up for the shortcomings of the ground network and can quickly cover areas with weak traditional cellular networks such as the ocean, deserts, and mountains. At the same time, industries such as logistics, energy, agriculture, fishery, and emergency response are in urgent need of communication infrastructure with low cost, low power consumption, and wide coverage.

If the satellite Internet is understood as "optical fiber in space," which mainly provides broadband data Internet access services for humans. Then, the satellite Internet of Things can be understood as "WeChat in space," which can provide medium and low-speed bandwidth data Internet access services. For example, it supports humans to transmit text messages, voice messages, and picture messages. However, its broader scenario lies in enabling things to be "connected to the Internet."

In uninhabited areas, the satellite vehicle networking supports real-time sending of positions and receiving and sending of short messages, thus ensuring the interconnection between vehicles. On the vast ocean, when you want to find the position of a cargo ship, you can rely on the tracking ability of the satellite Internet of Things. From this perspective, the satellite Internet of Things is more like a "logistics network in space."

Looking globally, from the fall of the stars to the rebirth from the ashes, the Iridium satellite system, which was once on the verge of bankruptcy, has also shifted its focus from traditional satellite communication to the satellite Internet of Things.

The competition in the satellite Internet of Things track is not so fierce. The Iridium Next constellation has 75 satellites in orbit, including 66 active satellites and 9 backup satellites, covering more than 2 million users globally and ranking first in the world. The second-ranked is a domestic constellation, which is built and operated by the private commercial aerospace enterprise Spacetime Navigation. It has 64 satellites in orbit, providing global real-time communication coverage. The user scale is expected to exceed that of Iridium, and it is estimated to support 20 million users. In addition, Orbcomm has about 60 satellites in orbit, but it does not provide real-time coverage. Globalstar has 48 satellites in orbit, providing nearly global coverage and supporting real-time communication.

Private commercial aerospace forces might as well find a new way, fully unleash their commercial implementation capabilities in the field of the satellite Internet of Things, overtake on the curve in the global competition of the "space WeChat" and the "space logistics network," achieve the goal of "more things than people" in space, make the "constellations in the sky" take root and blossom, turn them into "daily necessities" that ordinary people can afford, and let all industries bloom with the "flowers of space."

Images /  IT Times  Doubao AI  unsplash  

This article is from the WeChat official account "IT Times" (ID: vittimes), author: Sun Yan. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.