On October 20, the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site disclosed that the Phase II No. 3 pad is scheduled to complete equipment debugging by the end of October, and all four launch pads are expected to be fully operational before the end of this year, at which point the designed annual launch capacity will reach 60 missions.
Two years ago, this launch site was still awaiting its first launch.
In November 2024, the Long March 12 carrier rocket achieved a successful maiden flight at the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site, giving commercial rockets a new gateway to space. Since then, the site has gradually developed a regular capability of "two launches in five days" and "three launches in one month"; as of August this year, it had accumulated 21 successful launches.
Now, the No. 3 and No. 4 liquid rocket launch pads are about to join the operation. As the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site moves from Phase I's two liquid pads and two solid pads toward coordinated operation of four pads, what it must solve is no longer merely "whether launches are possible," but whether it can handle growing commercial missions at a higher frequency.
Behind this shift lies a real contradiction that China's commercial space industry is encountering: satellites are being built faster and faster, yet what is truly scarce are the rockets, pads, and launch windows needed to reliably send them into space.
Phase II of the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site broke ground in early 2025. In addition to building the No. 3 and No. 4 liquid rocket launch pads, it also includes supporting facilities such as a fueling depot area, rocket plant, satellite plant, and tracking and control station.
The two new pads adopt a generalized design that can accommodate multiple types of liquid rockets with a diameter of under 5 meters and a two-stage configuration. They continue the "three-horizontal" testing and launch mode, in which the rocket completes testing, assembly, and transportation in a horizontal state before being turned vertical upon entering the launch area.
This design may appear to be a ground process, but what it affects is the turnover efficiency of commercial launches. If different rockets do not have to undergo repeated modifications and waiting to use a pad, rocket companies can shorten mission preparation cycles, and constellation operators can more easily schedule satellite insertion into orbit according to a set rhythm.
In recent years, satellite factories in multiple locations have successively gone into operation or expanded production. The Wenchang Satellite Super Factory has a designed annual production capacity of 1,000 satellites, while Shanghai, Taizhou, and other places are also laying out batch satellite manufacturing. Satellite production is shifting from the past customized, small-batch model toward a rhythm closer to industrialization.
However, the improvement in manufacturing capacity has not automatically translated into growth in the number of satellites in orbit. China SatNet's GW constellation, Yuanxin Satellite's Qianfan constellation, and others have all proposed deployments of tens of thousands of low-orbit satellites, while low-orbit frequency and orbital resources have clear usage deadlines. For constellation operators, whether satellites can be launched in time concerns not only constellation deployment progress, but also whether frequency and orbit resources can truly be converted into service capability.
The strain on the launch side is thus magnified. According to industry estimates, if about 10,000 low-orbit satellites need to be deployed each year in the future, and with 18 satellites per launch, the corresponding annual launch demand could exceed 500 missions. By comparison, existing launch capacity still has a clear shortfall, and general-purpose commercial pads capable of opening to multiple companies and accommodating multiple types of liquid rockets are especially limited.
Therefore, the Hainan site's four pads reaching a designed annual launch capacity of 60 missions by the end of the year is more like a milestone marking that China's commercial space infrastructure has begun to catch up with satellite production capacity; it will increase the room for undertaking commercial missions and may also shorten the waiting time for rocket companies and constellation operators on the launch side.
However, 60 missions remains a designed capacity after completion, not a launch volume that has already been delivered. How many actual missions it can ultimately translate into still depends on rocket model delivery progress, flight success rates, satellite payload supply, and mission organization efficiency. Even if the capacity is released on schedule, compared with potential annual demand in the hundreds, it can only be regarded as relief, not a solution.
This is also a basic condition that "computing power in space" must face. Whether it is remote sensing satellites, communication satellites, or computing satellites exploring in-orbit data processing, moving from single-satellite verification to networked operation requires continuous, batch, and cost-controllable orbit insertion capability. Launch frequency determines deployment speed, while launch capacity and ground support efficiency affect networking costs.
From a successful maiden launch to four pads standing by, the Hainan Commercial Spacecraft Launch Site is completing the transition from single-mission support to regular supply. It cannot single-handedly close the "more satellites than rockets" gap, but it has moved China's commercial space industry one step forward toward the launch capacity needed for large-scale constellation deployment.
Comments