The race to swamp low Earth orbit with satellites just entered a surreal new phase. In the dying days of 2025, while most of the world was preparing for New Year’s Eve, a newly formed entity in China subtly submitted paperwork that could reshape the night sky in a very major way.
The filings, lodged with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), outline a plan to launch nearly 200,000 internet satellites. To put that staggering figure into perspective, humanity has launched fewer than 20,000 satellites in the entire history of spaceflight.
This is a massive claim on orbital real estate. As the United States and China jostle for dominance in the vacuum of space, these filings represent a strategic maneuver to reserve frequency and physical space before competitors — specifically Elon Musk’s SpaceX — can lock it all down.
The Paperwork Wars
The details of the proposal are vast. On December 29, a group called the Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilisation and Technological Innovation filed submissions for two distinct constellations, designated CTC-1 and CTC-2. According to filings seen by the South China Morning Post, “The biggest projects – CTC-1 and CTC-2 – were for 96,714 satellites each.”
Together, these two networks would comprise 193,428 satellites. The filing indicates they would be spread across “3,660 orbital planes”, creating a mesh of hardware designed to blanket the planet in connectivity.
The entity behind this audacious plan is as new as the proposal itself. The institute was registered in China’s northern Hebei province on December 30, the day after it submitted its ITU filings. It appears to be a collaborative effort, jointly established by seven Chinese entities and situated in the Xiongan New Area, a development hub intended to link Beijing with surrounding provinces.
Xiongan is sometimes referred to as China’s “City of the Future.” It’s supposed to serve as a model for high-tech, sustainable urban living, featuring smart city tech, green spaces, underground infrastructure, and a focus on innovation, AI, and green energy, aiming for a population of 5 million by 2035.
A “Land Grab” in the Vacuum
Why file for 200,000 satellites when you haven’t built them yet? The answer lies in how the UN manages space. The ITU operates on a system where filing first grants you priority over radio frequencies and orbital slots. If you file a plan today, subsequent operators have to prove they won’t interfere with your signal.
This system incentivizes nations to stake claims on far more capacity than they can realistically use.
Victoria Samson at the Secure World Foundation, a US non-profit, suggests this might be exactly what Beijing is doing. “It is possible they’re just trying to create some space for later on,” she told New Scientist. She adds, “It is also possible that maybe they’re planning on something that big.”
By getting the paperwork in now, China forces other nations to work around them. Tim Farrar, a satellite communications consultant, explains the strategic advantage. “If you file ahead of someone else, if you meet your deadlines, those other operators should not interfere with you,” Farrar told New Scientist.
The sheer size of the request — spanning thousands of different orbits — is staggering but offers a lot of flexibility. China’s large filing for so many different orbits could mean they haven’t made up their mind yet concerning the structure of this constellation. Essentially, by claiming everything, they keep their options open.
“It gives them freedom of choice of what they want to do,” Farrar says. “There’s very little penalty to doing it this way.”
The Physical Impossibility of “Launch Fever”
While the bureaucracy allows for infinite ambition in this case, the laws of physics are less forgiving. Even if the application is genuine, the logistics of deploying 200,000 satellites in the required timeframe are mind-boggling.
Under current rules, “satellite systems have to be operating — or have at least one satellite launched and operated for a period of time — within seven years of initial filing,” Victoria Bela wrote for SCMP. Once that first satellite is up, the clock starts ticking harder: operators must deploy 10 per cent of their constellations within two years, half within five years, and all within seven years of that first launch.
To hit those targets, China would need to increase its launch cadence to unfathomable levels. Yes, the country launched 92 rockets in 2025, a record for the nation. However, to deploy the full CTC constellations, they would need to launch more than 500 satellites a week to deploy 200,000 in seven years. From nearly 100 to many thousands of launches a year is a huge leap.
This disconnect between filing and actual capability isn’t unprecedented. In 2021, Rwanda filed for a constellation of 327,000 satellites. The industry largely shrugged. Needless to say, Rwanda hasn’t launched one satellite since.
However, unlike Rwanda, China is a major space power with active mega-constellations already in development. It would be unwise to underestimate their capabilities and resolve to get the job done.
Crowded Skies and Orbital Anxiety
China’s massive filing is a direct response to the rapid expansion of Western networks, particularly SpaceX’s Starlink. The geopolitical subtext here is the rapid saturation of near-Earth space. The US and China are locked in a race to control the “shell” of connectivity around the planet.
SpaceX currently dominates this domain with roughly 9,400 active Starlink satellites, a lead that Beijing views as a national security threat.
Securing these rights is a way to ensure China isn’t locked out of the future internet. The “first mover” advantage in orbit is powerful. As experts have explained, the rules favor those who get their paperwork in early. The main concern is that if China waits, the best orbital slots will be gone
China hasn’t stood idle. The country is building the Guowang network, which aims to launch around 13,000 satellites, and the Qianfan network, which plans to deploy more than 15,000 satellites by 2030.
Whether this is a bluff or a genuine roadmap, it highlights how quickly our perception of “crowded” has shifted. Just a decade ago, a few dozen satellites constituted a network. Today, we are talking about hundreds of thousands.
If even a fraction of these satellites is launched, low Earth orbit will become a fundamentally different place. The region between 400 km and 2,000 km altitude is already becoming a traffic jam.
Safety is a growing concern. In December, Starlink admitted that one of its satellites had experienced an anomaly and deorbited unexpectedly. To mitigate risks, SpaceX announced it would lower the altitude of around 4,400 satellites orbiting at around 550km to 480km this year to reduce the chance of collisions.
Whether China actually intends to build 200,000 satellites or is simply gaming the regulatory system to hold the door open, the message is clear: the gold rush for low Earth orbit is far from over. It has only just begun.
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