A Chinese state-owned company, Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) successfully launched and placed 18 satellites into orbit on Tuesday, state broadcaster CCTV reported, as China tries to build its own version of the US company’s Starlink network. SpaceX.

The launch of the low earth orbit (LEO) satellites took place at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shaanxi Province.

The satellites were carried on a Long March 6 rocket and represent the first batch of SSST’s “Thousand Sails Constellation” project, CCTV reported.

The state-backed plan is China’s “answer” to Starlink, SpaceX’s growing commercial broadband constellation that has about 5,500 LEO satellites in space to provide near-global internet to consumers, companies and government agencies.

Starlink is a subsidiary of American entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX space company.

LEO satellites typically operate at altitudes of 300km to 2,000km above the Earth’s surface and have the advantage of being cheaper and providing more efficient transmission than satellites in higher orbits.

Since 2022, when the war in Ukraine demonstrated the importance of Starlink for battlefield communications, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-affiliated media have published several editorials about the threat Starlink poses to the interests of China.

These articles described Starlink and SpaceX as part of the “space hegemony” the United States is trying to establish in space, giving it a “unilateral space military advantage.”