Zhongke Satellite generally refers to Zhongke Satellite Technology Group Co., Ltd. , a commercial aerospace company established in December 2020. It is promoting the construction of an independent SAR remote sensing constellation . Headquartered in Jinan, Shandong province, China, People’s Republic of China, , it is one of the carriers for the transformation of technological achievements of the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
[CAS Satellite’s AIRSAT-12 (Tianhe-02) and AIRSAT-13 (Beibu Gulf-3) satellites depart for Taiyuan, scheduled for launch in late November!] On October 30th, a factory acceptance review meeting for the AIRSAT-12 (Tianhe-02) and AIRSAT-13 (Beibu Gulf-3) satellites, manufactured by CAS Satellite Technology Group Co., Ltd., was held in Shanghai. Experts at the meeting unanimously agreed that all test indicators for the two satellites met the overall design requirements and satisfied the conditions for delivery. Both
satellites are X-band two-dimensional scanning…
Basic Information
- The registered capital is approximately RMB 199 million, and the legal representative is Liu Jianbo. It was formerly known as Zhongke Satellite (Shandong) Technology Group Co., Ltd.
- It has formed a “dual-base” layout with its headquarters in Jinan and its base in Hefei, and has branches in Jinan, Hefei, Beijing and other cities, and has invested in many subsidiaries.
- In 2024, it completed a Series A financing of over 500 million yuan, and in 2025, it completed a Series B financing of tens of millions of yuan.
Business direction
- The core is commercial remote sensing: covering the development of spaceborne SAR payloads, satellite design, AIRSAT constellation operation and aerospace data services, providing SAR remote sensing data support for fields such as natural resources, agriculture and rural areas, emergency disaster prevention, water conservancy, and urban planning.
- The first phase of the AIRSAT commercial remote sensing satellite constellation aims to have 21 satellites in orbit by 2026.
- In January 2026, the AIRSAT-02 satellite completed a trial of 120Gbps ultra-high-speed satellite-to-ground laser communication for commercial application.
Recent Developments
- On August 25, 2026, the Zhongke Satellite 14 and 15 were successfully launched by a Long March 6C rocket. Both are SAR satellites and will be interconnected after entering orbit to build an aerospace information platform.
- On October 30, 2026, AIRSAT-12 (Tianhe-02) and AIRSAT-13 (Beibu Gulf-3) passed factory acceptance testing and are scheduled to launch from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in late November. Both satellites are X-band phased array SAR satellites with a maximum resolution better than 1 meter. Each satellite carries over 200 TOPS of onboard computing power, enabling on-orbit pre-processing and intelligent interpretation of SAR images.
- In September 2026, it signed an agreement with the Shaanxi Provincial Aerospace Breeding Engineering Technology Research Center to participate in the development of my country’s first commercial aerospace breeding satellite; in the same month, it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with seven parties to establish a space-based service center for ASEAN.
- In October 2026, the “Space Computing Power Trading Platform” was launched as one of the first batch of companies to settle in the Beijing Space Computing Power Innovation Center.
It should be noted that “Zhongke Satellite” and “Zhongke Aerospace” (the developer of the Lijian series rockets) are two different companies. The former focuses on satellite development and remote sensing data services, while the latter focuses on launch vehicles. They can be easily confused when searching for information.
IMAGES AND VISUALS ARE FROM THEIR RESPECTIVES.
