China Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Episode 10 (30th Nov. - 6th Dec. 2020)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup! A special shout-out to our friends at GoTaikonauts!, and at SpaceWatch.Global, both excellent sources of space industry news. Without further ado, the news update from the week of 30 November - 6 December:

0:00 Welcome and news summary
0:56 Chang'e-5 updates
7:30 CGSTL funding round
15:10 Yaogan and Gaofen update

1) Chang’e-5 Lunar Return Mission
Following up on last week’s discussion on Chang’e-5 launch, which occurred on 24 November, this week we bring news of Chang’e-5’s arrival on the Moon.
If we pick up where we left off last weekend on the 29th of November, Chang’e 5 had just inserted itself into orbit around the moon. Since then, the lander has detached and performed an autonomous landing at the landing site, in the area called the Sea of Storms.
The lander then had 48 hours to select the area to drill (thanks to a number of sophisticated instruments), perform the drilling, and the sample was then scooped up and stored in the ascent vehicle. All of this was performed successfully on the 2nd of December.
The lander also had the opportunity to take a number of stunning images, with unprecedented resolution for moon pictures.It also took a snapshot of the Chinese flag held by an extension arm.
https://bit.ly/3omR0oa
https://bit.ly/39KHZBd
https://bit.ly/36NJqwR

https://bit.ly/3gkW89M

Unfortunately none of the coverage was live, although the CNSA/Chinese news outlets were quick to announce the outcome of the different steps as soon as the success was confirmed.

Worth noting: this is happening at the same time as the Japanese Hayabusa-2 sample return mission successfully returned to Earth on the 5th of December. Hayabusa-2 visited the Ryugu asteroid in 2019.
2) Charming Globe Completes a Massive RMB 2.4 Billion Pre-IPO Round of Funding
Chinese EO satellite manufacturer and constellation operator Charming Globe announced a RMB 2.46 billion (US$375M) round of funding on 1 December. The round is considered the company’s “pre-IPO” round, and thus implies that Charming Globe will likely IPO in the near-term. This should be interesting to watch, particularly 1) what do their financials look like, and 2) whether they IPO in Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Star Board. Most recently, a company representative noted earlier this year that the company’s 2019 revenues were around RMB 100M. This is somewhat astonishing when comparing these two numbers--

This represents the single largest funding round by a Chinese commercial space company. Charming Globe is arguably China’s leading EO satellite manufacturer. The company is a CAS spinoff, HQed in Changchun, Jilin province, and to now already has 20+ satellites in orbit, many of which have been launched by Kuaizhou rockets.

The company has plans for 60x EO satellites in its first phase constellation, and 138x EO satellites in its second phase constellation. Noteworthily, CGSTL’s satellites are primarily optical, due to the fact that the company is a spinoff from the CAS Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics. The company has announced some initiatives for SAR and hyperspectral, and this funding may also help develop these technologies.

Charming Globe is noteworthy for being one of several “hybrids” in China, which is to say, a commercial company that has some affiliation with the state. In the case of CGSTL, the company is a spinoff from CAS, but has a rather unusual shareholder structure. According to Tianyancha, around 15 early employees or other individual shareholders have stakes in the company, with some being as small as US$100k or so.
https://bit.ly/2VQwAYl

3) Recommended article on Yaogan
From around 1.5 weeks ago, an excellent article from a French aerospace/space blog about China’s recent Yaogan launch, and the constellation more generally. Article gives some interesting insights on the strategic importance of Yaogan, what it might be used for, and what we might expect in the future from China in terms of signal intelligence and EO. The article also includes some excellent data visualization, and is preceded by a couple of related articles on Yaogan by the same author.
https://bit.ly/2IniScC

This has been another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup. If you’ve made it this far, we thank you for your kind attention, and look forward to seeing you next time!

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Видео China Aero & Space Weekly News Round-Up - Episode 10 (30th Nov. - 6th Dec. 2020) канала Dongfang Hour