China Launches 600th Long March Rocket as Guowang Constellation Expansion Continues

China successfully launched its 600th Long March rocket with the liftoff of its Long March 8A on October 15. With it, the rocket carried the 12th group of satellites in the Guowang constellation, expanding China’s low-Earth orbit broadband network, designed to one day compete with Starlink. This launch continues this deployment and highlights the accelerated launch cadence of Chinese aerospace authorities.

Following the success of Starlink, several countries have announced similar projects. China has Guowang and Russia is preparing its own, with trials to begin in 2027. The EU has also called for a Starlink-style constellation, citing reasons of independence and national security.

But these constellations are path behind Starlink, which currently has more than 8,000 satellites in orbit. Guowang is the second most advanced in terms of deployment, but it has a maximum of 95 satellites, according to SpaceNews. China plans to increase this number to more than 400 by 2027 and to 13,000 in the coming years.

Starlink has been so successful and has grown so rapidly because SpaceX can always add a few satellites to its Falcon 9 launches to complement them if it has payload capacity available. This is impossible for almost any other country or company, which gives SpaceX a huge advantage.

But others still want to catch up. China is launching more rockets, and as the EU pushes to create its own reusable craft in the future, we could see its launch rate increase in turn as prices also rise.

China took until 2007 to launch its first 100 Long March rockets, and until 2021 to launch the 400th. It has launched the latest 100 models in less than two years and could well manage nearly 70 in 2025 alone. With plans for a reusable Long March 12A sometime in 2026, Chinese rocket launches could accelerate further in the near future.