Starlink In Race With Chinese Rivals To Dominate Satellite Internet

Shanghai-based SpaceSail in November signed an agreement to enter Brazil and announced it was in talks with over 30 countries. Two months later, it began work in Kazakhstan, according to the Kazakh embassy in Beijing.

Separately, Brasilia is in talks with Bezoss Project Kuiper internet service and Canadas Telesat, according to a Brazilian official involved in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss ongoing talks. News of those discussions is being reported for the first time.

Starlink has since 2020 launched more satellites into low-Earth orbit LEO an altitude of less than 2 000km than all its competitors combined. Satellites operating at such low altitudes transmit data extremely efficiently, providing high-speed internet for remote communities, seafaring vessels and militaries at war.

Musks primacy in space is seen as a threat by Beijing, which is both investing heavily in rivals and funding military research into tools that track satellite constellations, according to Chinese corporate filings and academic papers whose details have not been previously reported.

SpaceSail declined to comment when presented questions about its expansion plans. A newspaper controlled by Chinas telecoms regulator last year praised it as capable of transcending national boundaries, penetrating sovereignty and unconditionally covering the whole world a strategic capability that our country must master.