As we have pointed out in "who can be the SpaceX of China" and "the Future of the Digital economy: the Society of 2050", we believe that it is already a high-probability event for mankind to complete a manned mission to Mars by 2030.

In the pursuit of human migration to Mars, with the continuous improvement of rocket carrying capacity and the gradual maturity of rocket recyclable and reusable technology, communication, navigation, remote sensing, travel and other industries are likely to usher in great changes. In the past few months, the Starship, a future starship planned for Mars exploration, has made its sixth prototype test flight in the past few months, another step towards its maiden flight in 2022.

In terms of satellite Internet, Starlink has begun small-scale internal testing in North America, Amazon.Com Inc's "Kuiper" communication constellation has been approved by the US government, the competition for Leo satellite systems among technology giants has accelerated, and orbital and frequency resources are becoming more and more "scarce." In terms of Chinese enterprises, Interstellar Glory and Blue Arrow Aerospace have completed a new round of financing, laying the foundation for follow-up development.

Commercial Rocket: SpaceX Starship prototype intensive Test Flight, how far is Man from Mars

The Starship project is expected to bring a number of breakthroughs in commercial aerospace application scenarios and rocket performance and cost.

SpaceX Starship prototype SN5 and SN6 completed the low-altitude jump test flight.On Aug. 4, the SpaceX full-size Starship (Starship) prototype SN5 completed a 150m jump at the Bokacchka test site in Texas, and the test flight lasted about 1 minute. On September 4th, SN6 completed its test flight. "Starship" is the next generation of SpaceX spacecraft after the "Dragon". There are mainly the following changes: 1) the new "Raptor" engine adopts the propellant scheme of liquid methane + liquid oxygen, which is 3.6 times higher than the existing "Merlin" engine's refined kerosene + liquid oxygen scheme. 2) the low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of the spacecraft's matching rocket will reach 100 tons, which is more than four times higher than that of Falcon 9, which is currently used to carry the Dragon spacecraft. Starships may be used in the future to 1) launch and recover satellites, 2) lunar exploration programs, 3) Mars travel, and 4) cargo transportation from the International Space Station. According to SpaceX, Starship is expected to cost no more than $200m per launch, with an average launch price as low as $1.33 million per ton.

Chart: SN6 low-altitude jump test flight

Chart: comparison of sea level version of Raptor and vacuum version of Raptor engine

Chart: comparison of Raptor (left) and Merlin (right) engines

Chart: volume comparison between "Dragon ship" (left) and "Starship" (right)

Chart: design drawings of SpaceX Starship spacecraft

Chart: load of various mainstream rockets and unit price per launch

"Starship" is expected to open suborbital civil aviation, space travel and other new application scenarios.

According to SpaceX's plan, the planned uses of Starship include:

1) Satellite related:For satellite launch, to launch farther at a lower marginal cost, or to launch larger satellites, or to launch more small satellites; in addition, it may also be used to collect old scrapped satellites and debris in the future.

2) International Space Station mission:Transport supplies or astronauts for the International Space Station.

3) Moon:Explore the surface of the moon and help establish a base on the moon.

4) Travel to Mars:Help build Martian cities-according to SpaceX's plan, starships will act as the main spacecraft for manned missions on Mars: first, launch "starships" and cargo ships filled with fuel, and when both reach low-Earth orbit, do a space refueling, and then "starships" fly to Mars; fuel the spacecraft's return trip by converting carbon dioxide and water on Mars into methane and oxygen.

5) ground-to-ground travel:According to SpaceX's plan, its BFR spacecraft will be considered for use in civil aviation in the future, when ground-to-ground travel will reach 27000km/h speed and it will take only 34 minutes to fly from Hong Kong to London.

Chart: SpaceX plans to use BFR spacecraft in civil aviation in the long term.

Chart: SpaceX plan to and from Mars

The latest Development of China's Commercial launch vehicle

In China, in recent months, we have seen that the reusable liquid oxygen methane engine of the Star Glory focus 1 ("JD-1") has successfully passed the long-range test run of continuously variable thrust, and the Blue Arrow's liquid oxygen methane rocket has also completed a number of ground tests. We believe that as the industry leaders such as Interstellar Glory, Blue Arrow Aerospace and Xinghe Power gradually make breakthroughs in liquid oxygen and methane engine and recovery technology, the price of commercial launch in China may further drop. It is expected to further open up the vast private launch market.

Chart: important milestone of China Commercial Rocket Corporation

Satellite Internet: Amazon Satellite Network has been approved, Satellite applications in China are booming

Constellation networks accelerate, technology giants compete for communication spectrum resources

Starlink has begun internal testing in North America.

SpaceX's website shows that its Starlink Leo satellite network has been tested in parts of the northern United States, and the current theoretical download speed is up to 100Mb/s. The network is expected to have the ability to provide formal services in North America by 2021.Amazon.Com Inc's "Kuiper" constellation project was approved.The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the approval of Amazon.Com Inc to build his own satellite Internet system.

According to documents disclosed by FCC, Amazon.Com Inc's "Kuiper" project plans to launch 3236 satellites into low-altitude orbit, which will be deployed in five phases. Once 578 satellites enter orbit, broadband services will begin. Amazon.Com Inc plans to use the following spectrum in turn, 17.7-18.6 GHz (space-to-earth), 18.8-20.2 GHz (space-to-earth), and 27.5-30.0 GHz (earth-to-space).

Chart: the latest speed measurement results of Starlink satellite Internet

Chart: comparison of Amazon and SpaceX communication spectrum resource application progress

At present, the orbits and frequencies of satellites around the world are uniformly managed by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

If any enterprise wants to operate a commercial satellite, it must apply to the ITU by the telecommunications authorities of the country where it is located, and then notify the national authorities to approve the distribution of the spectrum after consideration by the ITU.

According to the 2019 ITU annual space report database, by the end of 2019, there are 1144 non-geostationary satellite networks (NGSO, Non-geostationary satellite Network) being declared and put into use in the world, of which the United States ranks first, and China ranks first, which is about 1 and 2 of that of the United States. Of these, 665 NGSO satellite networks have been put into use or have been put into use, including 157in the United States, 81 in China and 75 in France, with the first three countries accounting for nearly half.We believe that satellite frequency resources are scarce "non-renewable resources".Foreign technology giants such as Starlink and Amazon.Com Inc are also actively competing for scarce satellite communication frequency and orbital resources to accelerate the deployment of constellations.

Chart: number of NGSO satellite networks that countries have declared to ITU (2019A)

Chart: number of national NGSO satellite networks approved by ITU (2019A)

China's satellite Internet is booming, and multiple applications continue to emerge.

In terms of satellite communicationsOn July 14, Galaxy Aerospace completed the mountain test of the low-orbit broadband communication satellite and successfully achieved broadband network coverage in remote mountainous areas.Satellite navigationBeidou Xingtong has completed the 22nm Beidou navigation chip, which is expected to be mass produced in the second half of next year. In addition, Beidou Xingtong has also released Beidou navigation terminal products such as high-precision receivers.Satellite remote sensingZhongke Xingrui's remote sensing image crude oil inventory analysis products have been cut into a number of financial information platforms, and plan to start the research and development of the next generation satellite launch and satellite financial information service integration solution in the near future.

Chart: the development process of domestic navigation chips

Chart: thousand fathom location Beidou application solution

Chart: Galaxy Aerospace Galaxy constellation application scenario

Chart: application scenario of Internet of things constellation

Chart: Zhongke Xingrui crude oil inventory satellite analysis solution

Risk

The process of commercialization of Leo satellite constellation is not as expected; the progress of commercial launch is not as expected.