China Plans 1,000-Plus Satellites to Benchmark Starlink, Report Says

A Chinese consortium has set out plans for a constellation of more than 1,000 satellites and says it wants to measure itself against SpaceX’s Starlink programme. The launch ceremony for the “String of Space” computing constellation was held in Hangzhou on 25 September 2026, according to a report published on 30 September by 36Kr.

One caveat belongs at the top rather than the bottom. That 36Kr report is the only account of the Hangzhou ceremony Starlink News has been able to find in English, and every figure below is the outlet’s or the companies’ — not ours, and not corroborated by a second newsroom.

What we can and cannot verify

• Single-sourced. The ceremony, the 1,000-satellite roadmap, the revenue and the technical specifications all trace back to one 36Kr report, which in turn quotes the two companies building the constellation. We found no matching item in the English-language trade press, including SpaceNews, at the time of writing.
• The 2028 Starlink benchmark is a headline, not a statement in the body. See the section below.
• Plans can be checked against filings; hardware can be checked against catalogues. Constellation plans of this size are normally filed with the International Telecommunication Union and appear in the ITU Space Network List. Satellites already in orbit — including the ones 36Kr names — show up in the CelesTrak catalogue, in Gunter’s Space Page and, for satellites delivered to foreign governments, in the UN Register of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
• The commercial numbers are unaudited. A 2025 revenue figure of 130 million yuan and a claim of profitability come from a private company via a single outlet. Neither is filed anywhere a reader can inspect.
• The launch tally is the outlet’s own count. 36Kr’s figure of at least 10 Chinese launches and 44 satellites in September 2026 is a monthly round-up, not an official total. Independent launch logs — Jonathan McDowell’s orbital statistics pages and the launch databases on Gunter’s Space Page — are the standard cross-check, and they are the same sources used to verify Starlink’s own deployment numbers.

Key facts

• The programme is jointly built by Earthii, a Chinese space computing company founded in 2021, and Oriental Starlink, which 36Kr says is responsible for overall design and operation while Earthii supplies AI capability and overseas market reach.
• The published roadmap covers more than 1,000 “space agents” in the long term, with the first, G1, scheduled to launch in 2027 carrying an 11.5kW computing load and 40–60P of computing power measured against existing standards, the outlet reports. The units behind both of those numbers are unpacked below.
• 36Kr describes it as the first space computing constellation in China aimed at the global market.
• Earthii’s business covers more than 40 countries and its 2025 revenue was 130 million yuan, with overseas markets accounting for more than half and the company profitable, according to the report.
• The outlet also reports that in September 2026 alone China conducted at least 10 space launches, putting 44 satellites into orbit, alongside financings across the sector totalling hundreds of millions of yuan.

Why it matters

Readers watching satellite internet mostly track broadband networks, and it is worth being precise here: 36Kr describes “String of Space” as a computing constellation, not an internet service. The Starlink comparison in the report is about scale and ambition in orbit, at a moment when SpaceX has been deploying its first 26 Starlink V3 satellites from Starship.

There is also a naming trap. One of the two builders is called Oriental Starlink, and 36Kr’s report gives it no link to SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service beyond the coincidence of the name. Expect the two to be confused in aggregated coverage and in search results.

A note on names and dates

The wire headline on 36Kr’s English report refers to the company as SpaceWit and puts the Starlink benchmark at 2028. The body of the same report consistently calls the company Earthii and does not repeat the 2028 date, so the 2028 target rests on the headline alone. That is why it is hedged in our own headline rather than stated flat: a date that survives only in a translated headline, with no quote or roadmap entry behind it in the text, is not a commitment anyone has made on the record.

What the constellation is meant to do

The stated goal, according to 36Kr, is an integrated space agent combining chips, algorithms and models. Song Bingchen, co-founder of Oriental Starlink, told the outlet the aim is to become a space computing node that can think, make decisions and evolve.

36Kr frames the whole push as a response to the limits of what it calls the “space-sensing and ground-computing” path: the more satellites go up, the closer the industry gets to that limit, which is driving attention toward processing data in orbit instead. The bottleneck being described is downlink — the amount of raw imagery a satellite can physically send to a ground station in the minutes it has a pass — and the proposed answer is to send conclusions instead of pixels.

The engineering problems named

Computing power on the “String” platform reached 400 TOPS in 2024, the report says, and pushing past that meant solving energy consumption and heat dissipation together. In the vacuum of space, 36Kr notes, chips can shed heat only by radiation, so Earthii developed high thermal conductivity composite materials — several times the thermal conductivity of aluminium alloys — used with deployable radiators. Song said self-developed heat pump technology will follow.

Three further technical routes are listed: radiation-resistant chips developed with domestic manufacturers, including what the report calls the world’s first reconfigurable chip with Qingwei Intelligence expected by the end of this year; perovskite and other new materials to raise solar panel conversion efficiency; and China’s first space liquid-cooled agent next year.

As of June 2026, six satellites operated by the two companies had a maximum cumulative in-orbit time of more than 2,600 days, giving the team chip performance data from the space radiation environment, 36Kr reports. The first reasoning verification satellite for the constellation, “Oriental Starlink 05/06”, launched on 5 August 2026 on a JL-3 Y12 carrier rocket carrying the self-developed “String” on-board computing platform. Those two satellites are the part of this story that is checkable against a public catalogue today, rather than a roadmap.

Reading the two G1 numbers: 11.5kW and “40–60P”

The report pairs an 11.5kW figure with “40–60P of computing power” and defines neither, so it is worth separating them. They measure different things.

The 11.5kW is electrical power — how much the computing payload is designed to draw, and therefore how much the solar arrays must generate and the radiators must eventually dump as waste heat. It is not a measure of performance. For scale, 11.5kW is in the region of a fully loaded rack of terrestrial AI servers, which on a satellite has to be supplied by deployable panels and cooled by radiation alone; that is precisely why the report spends its engineering section on thermal materials and heat pumps rather than on chips.

The “40–60P” is throughput. 36Kr does not spell out the unit, but in Chinese chip and data-centre writing “P” is routine shorthand for petaOPS — a quadrillion operations per second. Read that way, 40–60P is 40,000–60,000 TOPS, which by our own arithmetic from the report’s figures is roughly 100 to 150 times the 400 TOPS the “String” platform is said to have reached in 2024. The report does not say whether the operations are integer or floating point, or at what precision, and in AI accelerator marketing that single detail routinely moves a quoted figure by an order of magnitude.

Put the two together and 60 petaOPS from 11.5kW implies about 5.2 TOPS per watt (again, our arithmetic). That is in the neighbourhood of current terrestrial accelerators running at low precision, and it would be an aggressive target for radiation-tolerant hardware that cannot be convectively cooled. The report publishes no performance-per-watt figure of its own, so the two numbers cannot be reconciled from what has been made public — they can only be placed side by side.

How far behind SpaceX, in its own words

The report quotes Earthii’s founder conceding the distance directly: “At present, whether in terms of rocket technology, mass satellite production capacity or capital scale, we are not at the same level as SpaceX.” That gap is the context for a 2027 first satellite and a 1,000-satellite long-term plan, at a point when Starlink now reports 12 million users — and, as other would-be rivals have found, launch capacity is the binding constraint. On the published plan, G1 flies in 2027 and the thousandth satellite has no date attached at all.

The Chinese constellations this one is not

For context that does not depend on 36Kr: China’s two large broadband megaconstellations, the state-backed Guowang and the Shanghai-backed Qianfan, are separate programmes from “String of Space”. Both have filed for well over ten thousand satellites each, both have begun launching operational batches, and both are the ones that would eventually compete with Starlink for paying internet subscribers. Anyone who wants to size those programmes independently can pull their filings from the ITU Space Network List and their launched satellites from CelesTrak rather than take any outlet’s word for it.

“String of Space” is a third thing: a compute layer sold to satellite operators and governments, competing with ground stations and data centres more than with broadband providers.

What it means for Starlink prices and availability

On the strength of this report, nothing. A computing constellation does not sell bandwidth, so it puts no downward pressure on Starlink pricing and adds no coverage anywhere. Starlink’s price is set by SpaceX country by country and its coverage depends on regulatory approval and spare capacity in each cell; both are published on SpaceX’s own availability map, which remains the only authoritative place to check whether a given address can order and what the local plan costs.

The competitive pressure that does bear on Starlink pricing is coming from somewhere else — from its own falling revenue per user as it pushes into markets where a first-world monthly fee is out of reach, and, prospectively, from Guowang and Qianfan if either wins landing rights in the emerging markets where Starlink is currently expensive relative to local incomes. In that second contest, a Chinese constellation selling whole satellites and on-orbit compute to Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Southeast Asian governments is a nearer-term commercial fact than a price war, because it is already being invoiced. Readers in Africa, Asia or Latin America watching for cheaper satellite internet should treat “String of Space” as a story about who processes a country’s satellite data, not about what a dish costs.

Selling to countries that want their own satellites

36Kr says the domestic space computing market has not yet closed the commercial loop, so Earthii funded itself with mature remote sensing data services first and layered computing on top. With domestic remote sensing demand limited, and a team that includes people with more than ten years of overseas market experience at ZTE, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker, overseas sales became the priority.

Song told the outlet that many countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia want their own aerospace capability and space sovereignty. The model is a combination of whole-satellite export, data services and talent training, aimed at markets 36Kr says the traditional European and American aerospace system has ignored, where willingness to pay is strong and competition less fierce. That is a sovereignty pitch as much as a technical one: buy the satellite, keep the data, train the staff.

For readers in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent, one thing the report does not do is name Africa. The regions listed are the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and the only delivery named is to Oman. There is no pricing, licensing or availability information for any African market in the source, and no African partner, ground station or distributor is mentioned.

How to check this story yourself

Because the reporting rests on one outlet, here is the trail. The named satellites — “Earthii Intelligent Emergency No.1”, “Oriental Starlink 05/06” and the first “OmanSat” — should each appear in the CelesTrak catalogue and on Gunter’s Space Page with launch dates that either match or contradict 36Kr’s. A satellite delivered to Oman should be registered with UNOOSA by its operator. A constellation of 1,000-plus satellites needs spectrum, which means an ITU filing. And the September launch tally can be counted against independent launch logs. If the 2028 Starlink benchmark is ever stated by the companies themselves rather than by a translated headline, that will be the point at which it becomes a target rather than a turn of phrase, and we will update this piece.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has any other outlet confirmed the 1,000-satellite plan?

Not that we could find. At the time of writing, Starlink News located no second English-language report on the 25 September Hangzhou ceremony, and no independent audit of the figures 36Kr publishes. The claims are attributed to the companies involved and to 36Kr’s own tally of Chinese launches. Readers who want to check the hardware rather than the plan can search the ITU Space Network List for filed constellations, the CelesTrak catalogue and the UN Register of Objects Launched into Outer Space for satellites already in orbit, including the ones 36Kr names.

Will this change Starlink’s prices or availability anywhere?

No, not on the basis of anything in the report. 36Kr describes “String of Space” as a computing constellation whose satellites process data on orbit, not a broadband network, and the report contains no pricing, no ground terminals, no service tiers and no country availability list. Starlink’s residential and Roam prices are set by SpaceX market by market and its coverage depends on regulatory approval and capacity; both are published on SpaceX’s own availability map at starlink.com/map. The Chinese programmes that could eventually bear on Starlink pricing and availability are the broadband megaconstellations Guowang and Qianfan, which are separate from this one.

What does “40–60P of computing power” mean?

36Kr does not spell the unit out. In Chinese chip and data-centre coverage, “P” is standard shorthand for petaOPS — a quadrillion (10 to the 15th) operations per second. On that reading, 40–60P is 40,000–60,000 TOPS, roughly 100 to 150 times the 400 TOPS the same report says the “String” platform reached in 2024 (our arithmetic from 36Kr’s figures). The report does not say whether the figure is integer operations or floating point, or at what numerical precision, and in AI hardware marketing that distinction can change the headline number by an order of magnitude.

Is Oriental Starlink connected to SpaceX’s Starlink?

No connection is described in the reporting. According to 36Kr, Oriental Starlink is a Chinese company co-building the “String of Space” constellation with Earthii and is responsible for its overall design and operation; the report presents SpaceX only as a benchmark, not a partner. The shared word “Starlink” in the two names is a coincidence of translation, not a corporate link.

Will the “String of Space” constellation sell satellite internet?

The 36Kr report describes it as a space computing constellation made up of “space agents” that process data on orbit, not as a consumer broadband network. The report gives no pricing, no ground-terminal details and no consumer internet service for the constellation. Its stated customers are governments and organisations buying satellites, data services and training.

What did the first “String” computing platform do in orbit?

36Kr reports that “Earthii Intelligent Emergency No.1”, carrying the first-generation “String” platform, launched in August 2023 with 60 TOPS of computing power and more than 100 algorithms. It processed imagery on the satellite and sent only results to the ground; the outlet says 10,000 square kilometres of imagery took traditional satellites 180 days versus several hours on orbit. Starlink News has not independently verified that comparison, which is the kind of figure a vendor supplies.

Has Earthii delivered a satellite to another country?

Yes, according to the report. 36Kr says Earthii delivered the first “OmanSat” to Oman on 11 November 2024, carrying an optical camera with 1-metre panchromatic and 4-metre multispectral resolution and up to 45 minutes of continuous push-broom imaging. After two months in orbit it had completed more than 1,200 orbits and over 300 measurement and control tasks, the outlet says. Satellites delivered to a foreign operator are normally registered with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is where that claim can be checked against a public record.