12-04-2025
China's Starlink-rival satellite megaconstellations could litter orbit for 100+ years
China's satellite megaconstellation plans could clog low Earth orbit with large spent rocket stages, analysts warn. Those rocket stages could stay in orbit, increasing the risk of collisions, for over a hundred years.
The government's Guowang and the commercial Qianfan (Thousand Sails) internet constellations will each consist of 10,000 satellites. The first launches for these constellations started last year. Over a thousand launches will be required to finish lifting the constellations to space.
Scientists have already warned that SpaceX's Starlink constellation can obstruct important scientific observations. It could also lead to a devastating scenario known as Kessler Syndrome.
Now, China's new constellations will add to this problem. Unlike Starlink, the rockets lifting the satellites may also leave a large, long-lasting debris footprint in space.
China's space administration has faced heavy criticism in the past for its space practices. In 2022, several launches for its Tiangong space station ended with a dangerous, uncontrolled rocket reentry. One of these forced Spain to close its northern airspace for a short period.
Controlled reentry burns require more fuel and financial resources to operate, but they ensure no one is harmed and no property is damaged on the ground.
Now, amid rising concerns regarding orbital sustainability, China is leaving the upper stages of rockets in low Earth orbit (LEO). To be precise, it is leaving spent rocket boosters in persistent orbits, meaning they could remain there for over a century.
This is according to space and orbital debris awareness consultant Jim Shell, owner of Novarum Tech LLC. In a thread on social media platform X, Shell explained that "there will be some 1,000+ PRC [People's Republic of China] launches over the next several years deploying these constellations."
'I have not yet completed the calculations but the orbital debris mass in LEO will be dominated by PRC upper stages in short order unless something changes (sigh),' he continued. 'For both constellations, the rocket upper stages are being left in high altitude orbits — generally with orbital lifetimes greater than 100 years.'
To be precise, China's Long March 6A and 8 rockets are leaving their upper stages in orbits between 447 and 484 miles (720 and 780 kilometers). This is according to data from the US Space Force. As reported by SpaceNews, this is much higher than the roughly 372 mile (600 km) threshold aligned with global best practices.
At such high altitudes, the lower atmospheric density results in less atmospheric drag, meaning space debris can stay in orbit for many decades. The reason for this is that the Guowang and Qianfan satellites orbit at almost double the altitude of Starlink, meaning they fly roughly 621 miles (1,000 km) above Earth.
It is worth noting that the first Guowang launch in December 2024 did use a Yuanzheng-2 upper stage, which is capable of deorbiting itself. Older models were responsible for the uncontrolled reentries.
China is also developing a range of reusable medium-lift rockets. These will likely compete for Guowang and Qianfan launch contracts. However, how these handle reentries is not yet known. As SpaceNews points out, China is still looking to ramp up production of its Long March 5B and Long March 8 rockets.
Though China has the Yuanzheng-2 at its disposal, it is unclear whether these will be used for the majority of Guowang and Qianfan launches. The nation has a track record of ignoring established best practices in space in recent years.
Following one of China's uncontrolled rocket reentries in 2022, former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: "the People's Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth. All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property."
Chinese government officials have been known to wave away the criticism, putting it down to anti-Chinese propaganda. In an interview with IE in 2022, Harvard astronomer and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said China's 'reentries are objectively worse than what other countries are doing. I praise China's space program when it does good things, as it often does. And I criticize them when they are bad. This is bad.'
Of course, China isn't the only nation lifting megaconstellations to orbit. Elon Musk and SpaceX have also faced criticism for their practices. The company currently has more than 6,700 Starlink satellites in orbit. It plans to eventually lift 30,000.
While SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets do perform a controlled reentry burn, the satellites themselves cause problems for the global scientific community. Starlink satellites have reflective surfaces that obstruct observations by ground-based telescopes.
Though SpaceX does control its rocket reentries, it does still leave large parts in orbit. These have, on occasion, crashed down onto rural areas. Last year, University of Regina astronomer and space debris awareness advocate Samantha Lawler told IE, she went to see "terrifyingly large" chunks of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that had fallen not far from her home.
"I hate to say this, but I really do think it will take a death before government regulators pay attention to the problem of space debris," she continued. Lawler believes Starlink satellites have us on the verge of Kessler Syndrome, a scenario whereby one collision dramatically increases the probability of more collisions in a destructive, cascading effect.
In an interview with IE in 2022, Meredith Rawls, an astronomer at the University of Washington, said the Starlink problem is 'unsustainable'. What's more, 'If SpaceX were the only company poised to launch (tens of!) thousands of satellites, we'd be staring down a very different situation,' she continued. 'As it is, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.'
