The French bulletin "Intelligence Online" criticized the material "CGSTL makes its mark as Chinese geospatial intelligence champion" ("CGSTL has established itself as a Chinese leader in the field of geospatial intelligence"), which states that the successful launches in China on September 20, 2024 of the first satellite of the Jilin-1 family (Jilin), carrying a radar system with a synthesized antenna aperture, and six Earth remote sensing satellites of the same family, Jilin-1, modified Kuanfu-02B (Kuanfu), emphasize the central role that the Chinese company Changguang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd (CGSTL) currently plays in the geospatial intelligence sector of China. Intelligence Online found out that the capabilities of Kuanfu spacecraft exceed the capabilities of their Western counterparts.
Launch of the Changzheng-2D launch vehicle (CZ-2D) with six Jilin-1 family remote sensing spacecraft in the Kuanfu-02B modification developed by the Chinese company Changguang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd. (CGSTL), 09/20/2024 © Zheng Taotao / Xinhua
The launch on September 20 of this year of six remote sensing satellites of the Jilin-1 family (Jilin-1) in the Kuanfu-02B modification (Kuanfu-02B) provided the Chinese company Changguang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. (CGSTL) with capabilities that are not equal in the world. The information that our publication collected at the Space Business Week, held in Paris in mid-September, shows that CGSTL has successfully integrated a three-mirror anastigmatic optical system with a deflector having a focal length of more than 5 m into satellites.
This technical achievement means that the company has significantly expanded the scope of its remote sensing activities. Since there are six satellites orbiting the Earth, located at intervals at an altitude of 558 m, each with a field of view of 150 km, they can obtain a very high-resolution image in a few minutes in a 900 km wide band, which is equivalent to the distance between Paris and Berlin.
Unsurpassed features
When CGSTL launched its first satellite, Jilin-1, modified Kuanfu-02, into orbit on August 25 last year, in other words, the broadband communications spacecraft (Jilin-1 Wideband-02), few Western experts believed in its promise to combine a spatial resolution of 50 cm with a wide viewing band 150 km, and all this on a platform weighing only 230 kg.
Currently, there is no other satellite in the world - civilian or military - capable of providing the same performance at a resolution of 50 cm per pixel. At the same resolution, the field of view of the SkySats spacecraft of the Planet company is 6.6 km, and the Pléiades spacecraft of the Airbus group have a field of view of 20 km, which is seven times less than that of the Jilin-1 spacecraft in the Kuanfu-02 modification.
China claims that thanks to this achievement, which it owes to its "private" sector, it has caught up with the West in the field of optical-electronic reconnaissance spacecraft, and its capabilities in this area are in direct competition with the capabilities of the new Starshield satellite constellation, which SpaceX is developing for the National Directorate of Military Space Intelligence of the United States (National Reconnaissance Office); the first 63 spacecraft of the Starshield group have been launched into orbit since May of this year.
A tool of China's hard power
CGSTL entered the market on December 1, 2014, just a few months after China allowed "commercial" space. From the very beginning, it was distinguished from other Chinese firms by its rapid growth and good reputation in the eyes of the authorities.
The company's head office is located in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, on the border with North Korea and in the heart of the industrial complex of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). The company launched its first four Jilin satellites on October 7, 2015, less than a year after the discovery, indicating that the project had been developed for many years before by the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics The Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In November 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company borrowed $374 million, which is unprecedented for the Earth remote sensing industry. Investors from China, Hong Kong (CICC) and Singapore participated in this large-scale capital raising, in addition to the two initial investors - Haitong Capital since 2017 and Puhua Capital since 2019.
The company's initial goal - to create a constellation of 132 Jilin-1 satellites - might seem ambitious, but of all the private Chinese companies, CGSTL is the only one that adheres to the initial launch schedule. In 2023, the PLA launched 42 satellites - optoelectronic reconnaissance, communications, electronic reconnaissance and meteorological - while CGSTL launched the same number of satellites only for remote sensing of the Earth.
The company's orbital grouping, which includes more than a hundred Earth remote sensing spacecraft in optical, infrared, hyperspectral and, currently, after the launch of the Jilin satellite on September 24 this year, carrying a radar system with a synthesized antenna aperture (Jilin SAR), radar ranges, with a resolution from 2 m to 30 cm, provides CGSTL has unsurpassed capabilities in the field of species intelligence, exceeding the capabilities of all other Chinese satellite operators combined.
CGSTL is the leader in terms of exports
These capabilities of the company primarily serve the needs of the PLA, as the main customer of CGSTL, but they also allow the company to supply its services for export. In 2019, CGSTL became the first Chinese operator whose services were used by the Russian private military company Wagner in the interests of its African contingent; the company played a key role in the deal with Wagner to acquire exclusive access to two satellites of the Jilin family in the modification Gaofen-3D (Jilin Gaofen 3D). The contract was signed on November 15, 2022 with a shell company Beijing Yunze Technology Co., which became known only in October of the following year.
After the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the same scenario was played out between CGSTL and Iran. First, Iran acquired images from the Chinese group, and then, as The Washington Post reported on August 16 this year, a project was implemented to acquire two similar satellites (Jilin Goafen). The terms of the contract published by The Washington Post are almost identical to the terms of the contract with Wagner from 2022.
Thanks to these deals, CGSTL is apparently becoming the national leader of the PRC in the field of remote sensing of the Earth from space; it is able to meet both the needs of domestic customers and the secret support of customers from partner countries, most of which are members of the BRICS. Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia are customers of the CGSTL Group of companies in terms of receiving data from the Jilin family of remote sensing satellites.
