SpaceX's IPO has shattered the myth of Chinese space exploration!

SpaceX's IPO has shattered the myth of Chinese space exploration! (Video)

[People News] Hello everyone, welcome to 'Forbidden News Uncovered'. I am Sun Ning.

On June 12, 2026, a pivotal event took place in the United States that could reshape the global technology landscape.

SpaceX went public, and this was no ordinary IPO; it set a new record in the history of human IPOs.

Founder Elon Musk, holding a 42% controlling stake, saw his personal net worth skyrocket by $1.11 trillion overnight, making him the first 'trillionaire' in recorded history. Even more remarkably, over 4,000 ordinary employees became millionaires overnight. Welders, receptionists, and assembly workers all achieved financial freedom thanks to this one company.

Simultaneously, Chinese commercial space companies rushed to the A-share market, eager to go public and secure funding. On one side, money was flowing in abundantly, while on the other, funds were burning out rapidly.

Why is the disparity so striking?

Feeling particularly 'green with envy' when seeing peers

The trillion-dollar celebration across the ocean struck the hearts of Chinese commercial space company owners and their investors like a heavy blow.

As they watched others count money until their hands cramped, and saw employees who weld stainless steel able to afford luxury homes in Miami, domestic space manufacturers and venture capitalists were left feeling utterly envious.

It is important to recognise that the aerospace industry is a massive black hole for capital. Over the past decade, leading private aerospace companies in China have depended on venture capital from the primary market and industrial guidance funds from local governments to keep their operations afloat. Investor funds do not come easily, and the typical investment cycle lasts about 7 to 10 years. As the deadline looms, numerous rockets have been launched, yet the prospect of a commercial closed loop remains out of reach.

The $2.1 trillion market value of SpaceX serves as a bright beacon in the dark night sky, signalling to the domestic capital market that engaging in rocket development and space internet can indeed lead to significant wealth!

Consequently, starting in early 2026, an unprecedented wave of 'listing rush' has emerged in China's commercial aerospace sector.

On December 31, 2025, just before New Year's Eve, LandSpace, the leader in mainland commercial aerospace, officially submitted its application to the Shanghai Stock Exchange for the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, aiming to raise up to 7.5 billion yuan. They are intently focused on the 'fifth set of listing standards' specifically designed by the Shanghai Stock Exchange for commercial rocket companies.

Interestingly, if you browse through the hundreds of pages of the prospectus from Land Arrow Aerospace, you'll come across a rather amusing detail: the name 'Space X' is mentioned a staggering 37 times in the section discussing industry competition and benchmarks. Implicitly, domestic companies are almost desperately trying to convince the review committee of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board and investors: 'Look, Space X is valued at $2 trillion. I am the Chinese version of SpaceX. If I can secure this $7.5 billion, the future trillion-dollar dividends will also be yours!'

Right behind Land Arrow are private companies like Tianbing Technology, Interstellar Glory, and Xinghe Power, which have either completed their IPO counselling filings or are aggressively pursuing billions in Series D venture capital funding.

Everyone is in a frenzy. This is because everyone understands that there can only be one 'first stock in commercial aerospace.' The company that goes public first will gain the unlimited trading power in the secondary market, allowing them to replenish their nearly depleted capital chain. Those who fall behind and miss this IPO opportunity may face ruthless liquidation due to funding shortages in the harsh verification year of 2026.

This is a life-and-death race against time, and it represents a capital leap forward that has been significantly accelerated by SpaceX.

Revealing the True Gap in China-U.S. Aerospace

The frenzy surrounding capital often leads people to overlook common sense. When we remove the flashy facade of these domestically listed aerospace companies, which claim to compete with Musk, and compare their actual financial data with SpaceX in the same table, the shocking disparity that emerges is simply unbearable.

Let's start with revenue.

According to public financial reports, SpaceX's total annual revenue reached an impressive $18.7 billion in 2025, which is approximately 130 billion yuan.

Now, what about Blue Arrow Aerospace, regarded as a rising star in China's commercial space sector and currently striving to list on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board?

According to the audit report submitted by Blue Arrow Aerospace in its prospectus, the company's total operating revenue for the recently concluded 2025 fiscal year was around 80 million yuan. Yes, you heard correctly—it's not a billion, but just over 80 million yuan.

When comparing 130 billion to 80 million, we see a staggering difference of four orders of magnitude, a gap of 1,600 times!

Now, let's examine net profit. SpaceX is indeed still operating at a loss, with a net loss of nearly $5 billion in 2025 due to its relentless focus on the Starship and AI computing satellites. However, the context of its losses is that it has a substantial and healthy cash flow. In contrast, Blue Arrow Aerospace is projected to have a net loss of up to 1.2 billion yuan in 2025. This indicates that its revenue doesn't even cover its own losses, and the entire company is entirely dependent on financing from the primary market and various subsidies from local governments to stay afloat.

Why is this happening? The answer lies in the fact that the business nature and technological dimensions of the two entities are fundamentally not on the same level.

Wall Street's willingness to value a loss-making SpaceX at $2.1 trillion stems from the fact that SpaceX has evolved beyond being just a "rocket ride-sharing company" that assists others in launching satellites.

In SpaceX's revenue structure, Starlink constitutes nearly 70% of its income; AI computing power rentals account for 17.43%; while traditional rocket launches make up a meagre 13.19%.

Today, SpaceX is essentially a multinational super telecommunications operator combined with a space AI data centre. Its Starlink service boasts over 10.3 million paying users globally, and in 2025, it generated a net profit of $4.4 billion solely from selling internet services and terminal equipment. Even more remarkable is that in early 2026, Musk integrated his AI powerhouse xAI into SpaceX, relocating large model servers into space and renting out AI computing power to major firms like Anthropic, effortlessly raking in $1.25 billion in monthly rental income.

Meanwhile, what are domestic commercial space companies doing at this moment?

A look at their prospectuses reveals a painfully simplistic business model: they offer liquid or solid rocket launch services. Their primary clients are research institutions or national teams. In simple terms, they are merely traditional "labourers delivering packages." If the national team does not have any extra satellites to launch this year, or if their own rockets experience minor issues at the launch site, their revenue for the year could plummet to zero.

Domestic companies are not only facing financial challenges but are also being left far behind technologically by Musk, to the extent that they can't even see the taillights. The core advantage of SpaceX lies in the mature vertical recovery and high-frequency reuse of its first-stage rockets. Their Falcon 9 has achieved an impressive record of '20 flights with one rocket' and even '30 flights', bringing the launch cost per kilogram down to an astonishing figure of under $1,500.

What about the domestic scene?

Despite daily claims at press conferences of having made 'historic breakthroughs in reusable technology', several leading domestic companies conducted recovery tests for reusable liquid rocket first-stage bodies in 2025 and the first half of 2026, and all of them, without exception, encountered issues during the final soft landing phase, resulting in rockets crashing onto the recovery platform and becoming scrap metal.

Most private rockets in mainland China are still following the outdated path that SpaceX took fifteen years ago: single-use, meaning they are launched once, and engines and rocket bodies worth hundreds of millions of RMB are simply discarded into the sea or smashed in the desert.

This financial 'bleeding to the bone' and technological 'one-time waste' make the domestic aerospace companies' efforts to go public appear more like a 'pie-in-the-sky show', where capital is eager to cash out and has to force itself to continue performing.

The Gap in the Deep Water Zone: The Life-and-Death Race of Starlink and StarNet

If the disparity in revenue and profit can be rationalised by the idea of 'starting late,' then in the deep water zone of space—particularly in the competition for near-Earth orbital resources—the generational gap between China and the United States is turning into a critical race that will determine the future dominance of communication for decades to come.

Before we delve into the details, it is essential to acknowledge a key reality: the capacity of low Earth orbit (LEO) is not limitless. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), due to concerns about collision avoidance and frequency interference, Earth's near-Earth orbit can accommodate a maximum of approximately 175,000 satellites.

The rules set by the International Telecommunication Union are stark: 'First to launch, first to benefit; first to declare, first to secure a position.' The first entity to place satellites in orbit claims that orbital space and frequency band. Those who come later will have to navigate around the established players.

Elon Musk's Starlink initiative is strategically leveraging this rule for aggressive spatial deployment.

As of June 2026, SpaceX has launched over 7,000 active Starlink satellites into orbit. International analysts predict that in the coming years, SpaceX will dominate the vast majority of global low Earth orbit positions.

The Chinese Communist Party is closely observing this situation; can they afford to remain passive? This is no longer just a matter of jealousy; if they do not act soon, all the advantageous positions in the sky will be claimed by others!

To counter the ongoing space land-grabbing efforts, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has aggressively initiated two major super constellation projects in recent years, driven by national will. The first is the "National Network Constellation (GW)" led by the CCP Satellite Network Group, which plans to deploy 13,000 satellites. The second, known as the "Qianfan Constellation" (G60 Constellation), is referred to as the Shanghai version of Starlink and also aims to launch over 15,000 satellites.

In early 2026, the CCP submitted urgent materials to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) concerning 203,000 satellites, showcasing an ambitious attitude of "drawing a bigger pie than you."

However, while the materials have been submitted, the question remains: who will actually launch these satellites?

This issue highlights a significant vulnerability in China's space program.

To achieve the initial deployment of the Qianfan and National Network Constellations, thousands of satellites need to be launched into orbit each year. Yet, the primary launch vehicles of the CCP's national team—the Long March 2, Long March 3, and Long March 4—despite their high success rates, are designed for "point-to-point precision engineering." Their combined annual launch frequency is only a few dozen, and each launch can carry only a handful or a dozen satellites, limiting their multi-satellite capabilities. More critically, the national team's rockets must prioritise major missions such as manned spaceflight, the Chang'e lunar exploration, and Mars exploration, leaving very little capacity for commercial internet satellites.

In contrast, Elon Musk's Falcon 9 can launch 60 Starlink satellites in a single mission, and thanks to its advanced first-stage recovery technology, it has minimised launch costs, earning the title of a true "space big truck."

This explains why the Chinese Communist Party hastily established the Commercial Space Administration under the National Space Administration by the end of 2025 and allocated a guiding fund worth hundreds of billions, urgently pushing private space companies to quickly develop large-capacity liquid rockets, similar to how it once accelerated the new energy vehicle sector. The available slots in space are diminishing at a rate of several each day, and the time left for the Chinese Communist Party in this competition over frequency of orbital resources is indeed running short.

Myth and Reality: The Hard-Core Generation Gap in China-U.S. Space Exploration

Aerospace engineering is a discipline that follows objective physical laws and does not tolerate any embellishments or short-term thinking.

While Musk calmly addresses engine failures and optimises the next-generation Starship on X, domestic commercial space companies are often the subject of international ridicule due to basic engineering errors.

In the summer of 2024, during a ground test of the 'Tianlong-3' sub-level rocket in Gongyi, Henan, Beijing Tianbing Technology faced a significant issue. They lacked basic structural safety estimates for the engine's massive thrust of over 800 tons, resulting in the ground test platform's construction fixtures being torn apart by the rocket.

This rocket, which should never have been launched, 'ran away from home' and ascended into the sky without any guidance or predetermined trajectory, ultimately crashing in a remote mountainous area. Such a fundamental mistake of 'testing to the point of launch' left the international aerospace community astonished.

Do you think 'Tianbing' has learned its lesson after paying the price? Not at all.

Tianbing Technology has continued its aggressive public relations campaign, asserting that its 'Tianlong-3' rocket is a direct competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9, with plans to achieve full vertical recovery by spring 2026. However, on April 3, 2026, the much-anticipated inaugural flight test of the Tianlong-3 Yao-1 rocket ended in catastrophe, as the rocket suffered a catastrophic explosion just 33 seconds after liftoff, disintegrating and crashing above the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The 'Chinese Falcon' that was promoted in presentations has once again been brought back to reality by the unforgiving laws of physics.

While our private space sector is still grappling with the challenge of 'how to safely launch a 4-meter diameter rocket into orbit,' SpaceX's Starship program has already progressed to the third generation of practical testing.

In the 12th Starship flight test, completed at the end of May 2026, despite the overweight booster and Starship each losing an engine, it successfully deployed 20 test AI Starlink satellites into their designated orbits, thanks to its remarkable redundancy algorithms.

Even more disheartening is the technological gap in core components—specifically, rocket engine technology—between the two sides.

The liquid engines that mainland China currently boasts about primarily utilise liquid oxygen and kerosene or traditional gas cycles. In contrast, Musk's third-generation Starship has been fully outfitted with the engineering marvel known as the Raptor 3 engine.

The Raptor 3 engine features an extremely complex full-flow staged combustion cycle. SpaceX has ingeniously leveraged full 3D printing technology to 'embed' the hundreds of external pipes and sensor lines that once cluttered the engine's exterior into its metal body.

The Raptor 3's surface is as smooth as a crafted artefact without any openings, yet it can generate a staggering thrust of 280 tons within a compact volume. It also allows for high-frequency deep throttling adjustments, enabling thrust control similar to that of a car's accelerator. This capability is essential for achieving precise deceleration and vertical landing of heavy rockets.

In contrast, on the mainland, whether it’s the national team's plan to conduct its first flight around 2030 with the 'Long March 9' heavy rocket, which closely resembles the Starship, or the PPT proposals from private companies, they are currently mired in the laboratory phase regarding the durability, consistency, and pipeline wear of 'high-thrust deep throttling engines'.

As a senior executive from a domestic commercial aerospace company candidly stated in an anonymous interview with the Straits Times in 2026: 'Even if everything goes smoothly for us, the most optimistic estimate for China is that we won't reach the scale of SpaceX's Starlink until 2033. Moreover, once Musk's Starship successfully completes the commercial closed-loop of orbital refuelling by the end of this year, the technological gap in aerospace between China and the U.S. will widen exponentially.'

This highlights the stark and cold reality of the technological divide.

Tickets to space are never sold to those in power or to those who deal in lies.

In 2026, SpaceX's capital extravaganza, valued at $2.1 trillion, has exposed the vulnerabilities of China's private aerospace sector.

The physical laws governing outer space do not cater to ideological whims. Regardless of how passionately crafted your press releases are or how polished your presentation slides may appear, when faced with stark technological gaps and the wreckage of failed launches, all slogans become mere self-deceptive illusions.

The strength of a genuine aerospace powerhouse lies in efficient market incentives, an inclusive environment for innovation, and truly independent research entities that can operate freely; it does not depend on layers of administrative directives or political metrics, nor should it tie all scientific endeavours to official 'vanity projects'.

In the context of the Chinese Communist Party's insistence that 'everything must conform to politics', science has been relegated to a mere propaganda tool. When core technologies remain undeveloped, and engines fail to last even 33 seconds, companies, caught between the pressures of betting agreements and political metrics, are left with no choice but to launch these 'premature steel monsters', which ultimately explode into fireworks before the public eye.

This neglect of technological principles and distortion of genuine market needs is the root cause of the growing disparity between Chinese and American aerospace.

The ticket to the cosmos is never granted to those who boast through power; it only acknowledges truth and the diligent sweat of hard work.

That concludes this episode of our video. If you enjoyed our program, please give us a thumbs up, subscribe, and click the notification bell. If you're weary of those misleading space myths, we invite you to share your thoughts and discuss in the comments section. We'll see you in the next episode! △