The war for space domination continues to heat up. Amid SpaceX recently accomplishing its 5th Starlink mission, Chinese billionaire Li Shifu has announced the launch of country’s first private company to build satellites, as he looks to rival Elon’s SpaceX for space domination.
Li’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group has started the construction of a production-and-testing centre in Taizhou, a city in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hangzhou-based Geely, which currently is also the owner of Volvo, plans to begin the launch of commercial low-orbit satellites by the end of this year, it said.
Li claims his satellites will give Geely an edge in the flourishing driverless car industry and provide more accurate navigation systems that can pinpoint locations by the centimetre, not metres.
“Geely must take the initiative to embrace change, develop through innovation, find new synergies online and offline, and cooperate with global partners to become a global technology leader,” Li said in the statement.
The foray in the space business scenario puts another feather in the hat of the Chinese Tycoon, already the owner of the automobile manufacturer Volvo, besides owning the British manufacturer Lotus Cars as well as being the biggest shareholder of Germany’s Daimler.
Geely has also invested in the VoloCity air taxi to launch it commercially within the next three years, and the company agreed in 2018 with state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp to build supersonic trains using home-grown technology.
Up until now, the private space travel and satellite building market has had a US monopoly, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s irgin Galactic being the sole proprietors. But, as is the case with every other tech ware, China refuses to play second fiddle in the race to dominate the space travel business.
