GuoWang - Overview of the Chinese State-Owned LEO SatCom Constellation

What is the Chinese state project for a LEO satellite constellation? Is it designed to compete with Starlink, Amazon LEO, or OneWeb? Or is it something else? Overview and analysis by SkyLinker.

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• History of the Project and Its Names: Guo Wang (国网), Xingwang (星网), GW-A59, China SatNet

• GuoWang Architecture and Technologies

• Launch Rates and Deployment

• Operation and Testing

• Summary

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GuoWang (国网) is China’s state-owned project to create a giant low-Earth orbit satellite internet constellation, which, in terms of scale and strategic importance, can be ranked alongside Starlink, Amazon LEO, and OneWeb. Unlike most commercial LEO initiatives, GuoWang has been positioned from the start as national infrastructure that combines civil, economic, and geopolitical objectives of the PRC.

In fact, the project is not intended for full-scale competitive struggle in the global satellite communications market. Rather, it should be perceived as China’s ambitious attempt to carve out its own “piece of the pie” in this segment and secure specific orbital and frequency resources.

The project involves the deployment of nearly 13,000 satellites in several orbital shells and is viewed by Beijing as a key element of the future “space-air-ground” communication ecosystem, including 5G-Advanced and 6G. At the same time, GuoWang remains one of the least transparent mega-constellations in the world: technical specifications of the satellites, network architecture, and real service capabilities are published fragmentarily, making any analysis a balance between confirmed facts, OSINT data, and cautious assumptions.

We would like to remind you that we have previously published on SkyLinker a review of the LEO project 千帆 - Qianfan (Thousand Sails) and a review of the LEO project Geespace - already quite developed and large commercial Chinese projects of satellite LEO constellations.