In an earlier post, I described what looked like two forthcoming Chinese broadband constellations, Hongyun and Hongyan and in another post, I described a third, identified as "GW" at the time. All three were projects of state-owned enterprises China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC).

There was pushback from those contending that a broadband constellation was redundant since Chinese mobile operators China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom cover most big cities and even more sparsely populated regions like Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. On the other hand, if a constellation were built, some remote cell towers could be de-commissioned and, in my mind more important, China could serve other nations as part of its Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. Chinese authorities are aware of the constellations of SpaceX and others, and China would have an economic and political advantage over them in nations with Belt and Road projects. (It is noteworthy that a third of this 2018 presentation on the Chinese Spatial Information Corridor is devoted to explaining "How the corridor contributes to the space capacity building of developing countries").

The decision has been made. CASC's GW (Guo Wang) will be China's global broadband service provider, and the constellation is tentatively named "Starnet." (I've seen "Guo Wang" written as Guowang and translated as "national grid" and as "national network"). Speaking at one of the two major conferences that review Chinese five-year plans, Bao Weimin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the CASC Science and Technology Committee, said: "We are planning and developing space Internet satellites and launching experiments. For satellites, the state will also set up a Guo Wang "state grid" company to be responsible for the overall planning and operation of space Internet construction."

China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 were adopted this month and, as China space expert Blaine Curcio points out they call for building an integrated communications, Earth observation, and satellite navigation system with global coverage. The Chinese already have navigation and Earth observation satellites, and it sounds like Starnet will be the communication component. Curcio was not surprised by the inclusion of these space goals in the five-year plan since it was foreshadowed by both the Belt and Road Spacial Information Corridor (see the essay beginning on page 19 of this report) and Made in China 2025 initiatives. He also speculated that Hongyan might be responsible for some of the eight Guowang sub-constellations.

Elon Musk has been quoted as saying his goal for Starlink is to avoid bankruptcy and OneWeb's Sunil Bharti Mittal says that "two satellite constellations in LEO will be enough, perhaps there might be space for three, but definitely not for four." I don't know about his prediction, but despite being behind the others — SpaceX is offering service and OneWeb plans to do so next year — Guowang, with the backing of the Chinese government and an edge in Belt and Road nations, seems a pretty safe bet to be around for a long time.