Chinese on-orbit servicing and debris removal company secures early funding

HELSINKI — Chinese commercial on-orbit servicing company Sustain Space has secured financing to support launching its first demonstration satellite.

The “pre-A+” funding round secured tens of millions of yuan (10 million yuan = $1.4 million), Sustain Space announced Sept. 10. The round was led by Shenzhen High-tech Investment (SZHTI), a state-owned financial services company.

Sustain Space, or Sanyuan Aerospace, was founded in June 2022 and is a subsidiary of Emposat. The latter specializes in satellite management, focusing on commercial satellite operations and control. 

Sustain Space is engaged in the development of on-orbit servicing operation technologies. Primarily applications include satellite and active debris removal (ADR), satellite refueling and life extension, and on-orbit satellite repair and manufacturing. The company is based in the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

The firm secured undisclosed seed funding from Taicang Port Hongrun Capital early this year. It stated in March a plan to launch a satellite to demonstrate orbital debris removal capability by late 2024.

The emergence of Sustain Space is notable in the context of China’s evolving commercial space ecosystem. It indicates support and opportunities for a company focused on space sustainability in China. It could also serve to support Chinese space infrastructure efforts.

The development can be seen in two ways, says Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation.

“One, developing the ability to do ADR and on-orbit servicing is going to be a key part of how everyone can continue to get the benefits of space and this is something that responsible space actors should be thinking about,” says Samson. “Two, while not all satellites can be used as weapons, satellites that can be used to do rendezvous and proximity operation activities have a potentially offensive, if secondary, capability and can be dual-purpose in nature.”

How the company will be perceived will in part depend on transparency, Samson states.

“A lot of how you view this depends on how you view the actor that possesses the capability. For example, as far as I know, no-one in the West has accused Japanese company Astroscale of secretly being a weapons program, partially because of how Japan is viewed and partially because Astroscale has been extremely transparent and communicative of its plans and activities in space.  

“But China’s use of its SJ-21 to remove a GEO satellite that had been shedding debris to a very high graveyard orbit in January 2022 has been repeatedly used as evidence that they can threaten other on-orbit satellites,” Samson adds.

“This is why it is important to be as open and transparent about intentions, plans, missions, strategies, you name it, as possible, because capabilities can be misconstrued and misinterpreted absent any real information about them.” 

“I would hope that this Chinese commercial company will follow Astroscale’s lead in sharing information about its orbital debris removal test program,” says Samson.

In terms of business case, Sustain Space states that a number of global megaconstellation projects are gradually being networked. “Once a satellite fails, it will threaten the normal operation of the satellites in that orbit. Actively removing space debris is the inevitable choice and the only way to ensure the long-term sustainability of space,” a company statement read, via machine translation.

It also states the belief that on-orbit maintenance and manufacturing will “subvert the design principles of spacecraft.”

Sustain Space was co-founded by Zhao Lei, chairman of Emposat, and Yuan Jianping, former Vice President of Northwestern Polytechnical University. 

Its technical team consists of experts formerly with Northwestern Polytechnical University, Tsinghua University, CASC and CASIC. The latter two are giant state-owned space and defense contractors.

China’s People’s Liberation Army, meanwhile, is also working comprehensively on the technology and training tools for on-orbit satellite refueling for both peacetime and wartime scenarios.

Globally, Sustain Space will be operating in similar areas to Astroscale of Japan. In the U.S., Orbit Fab is aiming to create a sustainable infrastructure for satellite fueling. ClearSpace, a European company, is also focused on space debris removal. It is backed by an ESA contract for a mission to remove a defunct satellite from orbit.

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