ASTRACK launches its angel round financing to build the core foundational platform for commercial space situational awareness data.
On June 26, 2024 (UTC), Russia's decommissioned Resurs-P1 remote sensing satellite underwent on-orbit disintegration, with U.S. Space Command issuing a public notification of the incident on June 27 Beijing Time. The satellite was launched in June 2013 and ceased operations at the end of 2021, with a total mass of 6,570 kg. According to continuous radar monitoring by LeoLabs, the satellite initially generated over 100 long-term trackable orbital debris pieces at the early stage of disintegration, and the number of subsequently identified debris pieces exceeded 180. After the incident, astronauts on the International Space Station activated an emergency avoidance protocol. The debris cloud did not cause malfunctions in on-orbit satellites such as GPS, but significantly increased local debris density in low Earth orbit (LEO).
According to real-time statistics from the Space Debris Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) in June 2026 and calculations using the MASTER-8 environmental model: in current global orbits, there are approximately 45,690 space objects that can be stably cataloged and tracked by ground monitoring networks; the model estimates a total of 54,000 orbital objects larger than 10 centimeters, large enough to destroy spacecraft; there are about 1.2 million lethal tiny debris pieces measuring 1–10 centimeters; the total number of micro-debris pieces between 1 millimeter and 1 centimeter reaches 140 million. Currently, over 80% of the world's artificial on-orbit objects are concentrated in LEO. The continuous expansion of mega-constellations has led to a year-on-year increase in debris density. ESA assesses that the collision risk in LEO has risen by 20% compared to 2024. Without normalized full-domain monitoring and control, an irreversible debris chain collision effect may be triggered in the LEO region in decades.
In terms of overall global declaration status, the total number of all low-orbit satellite paper declarations submitted by enterprises and institutions of various countries to the ITU has now exceeded 1 million, far higher than the theoretically safe upper limit of 100,000 to 175,000 satellites for LEO calculated by the industry. The massive satellite planning and declaration have led to continuous crowding of near-Earth orbit space, a continuous increase in the number of tiny faint targets and space debris, and a significant rise in orbital collision risks, creating urgent technical R&D demands for intelligent identification algorithms for faint targets, observation scheduling of distributed cluster telescopes, and a full-domain commercial space situational awareness system.
I. Core Pain Points and Market Needs Targeted by the Astrack Project
There are six major pain points in total. First, the orbital environment is becoming more complex: the interference of mega-constellations and the cascading effect of debris collisions are becoming increasingly serious. It is predicted that there will be 300,000 satellites at home and abroad in the future, and competition for orbital resources will be white-hot. Second, technology and cost bottlenecks: active removal technology is immature, and there is a lack of economic incentives. Space debris removal is technically difficult and costly, and a business model has not yet taken shape, restricting the development of the industry. Third, international cooperation and regulations lag behind: there is a lack of mandatory binding force, and some countries do not strictly follow international norms, making it difficult to control the increment of debris, resulting in an imperfect global governance mechanism. Fourth, the limitations of monitoring technology: it is difficult to stably and real-time detect centimeter-level debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and there are monitoring blind spots. Fifth, insufficient high-frequency demand: the current ground observation facilities have a limited monitoring range, making it difficult to achieve global coverage and all-weather monitoring, and cannot meet the high-precision and high-frequency early warning needs. Sixth, low data sharing and processing efficiency: insufficient data transparency and data processing delays. Data sharing mechanisms among various countries and institutions are not smooth, and data processing efficiency cannot meet the real-time early warning requirements.
In terms of market demand, first, there is a rigid need for orbital safety. The huge number of space debris and the massive networking of domestic and foreign mega-constellations mean that the total number of satellites in the next five years will conservatively reach 100,000, leading to crowded LEO orbits and a sharp increase in the risk of spacecraft collisions, creating an urgent demand for full-cycle orbital early warning and risk assessment. Second, existing monitoring technologies have shortcomings. Traditional equipment cannot stably detect tiny debris, achieve global all-weather coverage, and has insufficient monitoring accuracy and timeliness, lacking high-precision, full-domain real-time monitoring capabilities. Third, data service supply is insufficient. Monitoring data from various countries is fragmented and suffers from processing delays, and there is a lack of standardized original observation data and customized analysis services. The industry urgently needs an open data platform to support real-time early warning. Fourth, the industrial chain requires independent and controllable development. Debris removal technology is immature and costly, so risks can only be mitigated through monitoring; at the same time, the market urgently needs domestically developed optical monitoring equipment to realize independent production of the entire hardware system. Fifth, global governance drives third-party commercial monitoring. International space control regulations have weak binding force, and enterprises do not rely on official data, requiring independent commercial monitoring networks; meanwhile, derivative markets such as low-altitude monitoring and space science popularization can be expanded. Sixth, policies drive long-term incremental growth. Commercial aerospace is a trillion-dollar track, and national policies support the space safety industry. As a basic aerospace supporting facility, the space situational awareness market continues to expand.
II. Astrack Product/Technology Solutions and Key Capabilities
Space situational awareness business: Provide full-life-cycle space situational awareness services to ensure the safe on-orbit operation of spacecraft. Data platform operation: Open API interfaces and provide customized data analysis services to meet the personalized needs of customers. Optical telescope manufacturing: Focus on the development of optical telescope systems and provide customized optical monitoring equipment. Derivative products: Expand application scenarios such as planetary defense, low-altitude domain monitoring, and aerospace science and education products.
Build a global situational awareness monitoring network for commercial aerospace: the Smart Space Debris Monitoring Network (SADA). Develop a situational awareness monitoring network that empowers global commercial aerospace, with observation targets covering tens of billions of space debris around the Earth, providing space object situational and orbital observation data.
Establish an optical monitoring equipment production base: Achieve independent and controllable development of the entire industrial chain. From optical system design and development to production and assembly, and then to system integration and commissioning, provide products of different standards to realize independent control of key equipment for monitoring network infrastructure construction.
Construct an astronomy and space science education system: The Astrack Space Big Data Platform extends space environment observation to the field of science popularization education, providing astronomy and aerospace science popularization education for primary and secondary school students by offering popular science courses and developing cultural and creative products.
III. Astrack Business Model, Target Users and Market Space
Primary sales model: Space situational awareness business, including collision risk assessment and orbit optimization systems during the satellite constellation design phase, early warning analysis at the initial stage of launch into orbit, intelligent optimization of early warning analysis, assessment and management during on-orbit operation, emergency support, and space object re-entry prediction.
Exclusive pricing power: Unique space monitoring data services, including original data images, customized data images, and diverse space target data services.
Ultra-low-cost operation and maintenance model: Exclusive three-level space monitoring network. The tertiary monitoring network consists of 400 monitoring stations (self-construction is underway), planned to cover all transiting satellites worldwide, with a limiting magnitude of 10. The secondary monitoring network consists of 100 monitoring stations (some are under self-construction), covering all transiting satellites worldwide, with a limiting magnitude of 16. The primary monitoring network consists of 20 monitoring stations (requiring focused R&D and construction), covering all transiting satellites worldwide, achieving minute-level monitoring and early warning capabilities.
Government and enterprise aerospace entities (core key customers): National aerospace authorities, aerospace research institutes, manned spaceflight and remote sensing satellite project entities, and launch sites, which require full-domain space situational monitoring, space event analysis, spacecraft safety assurance, and orbital governance data support. Commercial satellite operators (main paying customers): Low-orbit mega-constellation enterprises and various civil and commercial satellite companies for communication, navigation, and remote sensing, whose needs cover satellite design orbit optimization, launch into orbit early warning, on-orbit routine collision avoidance, and end-of-life re-entry prediction, creating a rigid demand for continuous repurchases. Aerospace supporting industry customers: Rocket enterprises, aerospace insurance institutions, and aerospace simulation service providers, which purchase original monitoring data and customized orbital risk assessment reports for launch risk calculation and aerospace asset loss assessment. Customers in emerging extended fields: Low-altitude economy management enterprises and airspace management departments, which reuse optical monitoring equipment to track low-altitude aircraft; primary and secondary schools, science and technology museums, and aerospace science popularization institutions, which purchase observation equipment, popular science platforms, and aerospace courses. Overseas commercial aerospace institutions: Overseas small and medium-sized satellite enterprises and overseas aerospace research institutions, which purchase global monitoring original data and standardized API data services.
Overall track scale: Commercial aerospace is a trillion-dollar track, and space situational awareness is a rigid infrastructure for the aerospace industry, with the industry's growth rate continuing to rise. The total number of globally planned satellites will exceed 1 million, and the domestically planned satellite scale will reach 200,000. Competition for orbital resources drives long-term increments in monitoring services. Hardware equipment market: There is a huge gap in domestic monitoring stations. The project plans a total of 520 tertiary monitoring stations, supporting self-developed optical telescopes, observation systems, and data integration equipment, creating bulk procurement space for self-developed equipment across the entire industrial chain.
Continuous monetization of data services: Original observation data, customized analysis reports, API platform subscriptions, and full-life-cycle orbital hosting generate stable revenue; currently, data interconnection among countries is poor, giving third-party independent commercial monitoring networks exclusive pricing advantages. Derivative incremental markets: Aerospace science popularization software and hardware, as well as low-altitude target monitoring businesses, open up a second growth curve; combined with the dividends of national commercial aerospace policies, the long-term construction demand for space safety infrastructure is steadily released. Long-term industry gap: Existing ground monitoring has shortcomings in coverage, accuracy, and tiny debris detection, resulting in a severe shortage of global full-domain, minute-level real-time monitoring network supply. Domestically developed independent and controllable monitoring platforms have broad substitution space.
IV. Astrack Team Background and Current Progress
Founder: Lu Lichang, former Deputy Director of the General Office of the Aerospace Measurement and Control Institute of the General Armaments Department, a well-known expert in China's aerospace measurement and control field, serving as the chief designer of multiple satellite engineering measurement and control systems and the chief designer of the Manned Spaceflight Engineering Measurement and Control System. He participated in all flight test missions from Shenzhou-1 to Shenzhou-10, as well as dozens of military and civilian satellite launch missions. He has won the Special Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award; several Military Science and Technology Progress Awards; and the China Aerospace Fund Award, among other honors.
The team currently uses Astrack (Gu'an) Technology Co., Ltd. as its business entity, founded in April 2025 and registered in Langfang, Hebei. It plans to build a distributed multi-center architecture including an R&D management center, optoelectronic equipment production base, space big data and SADA network operation and maintenance center. It is the only private enterprise in China's commercial aerospace industry that has built a space-ground coordinated observation platform and a distributed space security data off-site backup system. Its core business covers four major sectors: precision measurement of space target orbits, space debris cataloging and collision early warning, full-aperture optoelectronic telescope development, and global ground-based optical monitoring network operation. By mid-2026, it has completed a number of phased implementation achievements, forming a five-in-one development foundation integrating technology, hardware, network, customers, and team.
(1) R&D Progress of Core Software Algorithms and Platforms
The company has independently completed the first-phase R&D of the ASTRACK space big data platform, built a data processing system, and constructed a complete three-level data receiving, cleaning, fusion, and analysis processing chain. It has independently mastered a full set of core algorithms including space target association recognition, precise orbit determination, long-term orbit prediction, massive mega-constellation parallel computing, and faint small target image enhancement detection, with key performance indicators leading the industry: the 24-hour ephemeris prediction error for orbits above 500km is controlled within 100 meters, the full-process system collision risk assessment time is less than 10 minutes, the limiting magnitude of the observation system can reach magnitude 16, and the effective observation data rate for medium and high-orbit targets exceeds 94%. Relying on self-developed algorithms, the team participates in special national key fund projects, and simultaneously deploys a number of invention patents and national defense patents. The core software intellectual property rights are independent and controllable, adapting to the full-scenario needs of space situational awareness, faint debris recognition, and remote automatic measurement and control of telescopes.
(2) Construction Progress of Ground-Based Optical Observation Network
The company plans to build a layered three-level full-domain optical monitoring network to cover the monitoring needs of low, medium, and high-orbit space targets. At the present stage, it has completed implementation verification: 3 standardized cooperative observation stations have been built in China, with more than 6 observation telescopes deployed and officially providing observation data services to the outside world. A cooperation intention has been reached with the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which can connect to existing stations for transformation and grid connection, significantly reducing the infrastructure and operation and maintenance costs of global networking. The complete planning of the three-level network is clear: the primary high-precision 70cm-1m large-aperture telescopes, the secondary 40-50cm medium-orbit observation array, and the tertiary 20-30cm wide-field survey small-aperture telescopes form a gradient complement. After completion, the database capacity will expand from the current tens of thousands level to hundreds of thousands level, enabling rapid capture and tracking of newly launched satellites within a few hours.
(3) Industrialization Progress of Self-Developed Optoelectronic Telescope Manufacturing
The company plans to build a dedicated optoelectronic telescope production workshop in Langfang, constructing a complete production line for optical system design, complete machine assembly, and system integration and commissioning. At the present stage, it has the capability for batch R&D and delivery of optoelectronic telescopes with apertures below 50cm, realizing full domestic independence and controllability of the optics, servo, and control software and hardware of observation equipment. The hardware products are implemented in two lines: on the one hand, they are supplied to the company's own SADA global monitoring network, and on the other hand, standardized observation equipment is exported to the aerospace enterprises, universities, science and technology museums, and primary and secondary school popular science markets, forming a stable revenue business segment for equipment manufacturing.
(4) Commercial Customers and Order Implementation Progress
The company has obtained formal orders from leading industry customers, and its market customers are divided into three echelons: the first echelon includes central state-owned enterprises and military units such as China Satellite Network, Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation; the second echelon includes leading commercial satellite enterprises such as Galaxy Aerospace, Changguang Satellite, and Ellipse Space-Time; the third echelon includes aerospace and astronomy departments of national universities and science and innovation popular science institutions. The product matrix covers three types of standardized paid services: first, report services (special satellite encounter early warning reports, monthly risk assessment reports, deorbit planning schemes); second, platform system services (customized space situational awareness platforms, orbit prediction and early warning systems); third, basic data and hardware products (original observation images, complete telescopes, annual data subscription packages). The diversified business model has completed market verification.
(5) Core Team and Industry-University-Research Resource Progress
The company's core team all has complete engineering experience in major national aerospace models and industrial operation experience, with supporting expert consultants in related fields. It simultaneously links the national primary and secondary school popular science alliance, opening up the derivative industry channel of "observation network + aerospace science and education", and has full-chain talent support for technology R&D, engineering delivery, and market expansion.
(6) Phased Implementation Progress and Long-Term Development Plan
The company steadily implements its work in strict accordance with the four-stage implementation roadmap. Stage 1: Promote the first-phase construction of the big data platform, expand domestic observation stations, and implement the mass production line for small and medium-aperture telescopes. Stage 2: Deploy three overseas ground observation stations, initially complete the SADA global monitoring network, and expand industry-university-research and popular science businesses. Stage 3: Complete the overall construction of the national three-level monitoring network, and expand value-added services for spacecraft measurement, operation and control. Stage 4: Deploy a space-based monitoring constellation, build a space-ground integrated full-domain situational awareness system, and aim for a STAR Market IPO. It has extremely strong commercial growth and investment return potential.
V. Astrack Investment Value and Strategic Vision
Market potential: The trillion-dollar commercial aerospace market, with space situational awareness as a key infrastructure, continues to see growing market demand.
Policy dividends: Strong support from the national space strategy, continuous favorable commercial aerospace policies, and broad industrial development prospects.
Technical barriers: Independent and controllable core technologies, forming complete technical barriers and long-term competitive advantages.