A professor from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics has stated that China neither needs to, nor can, replicate the SpaceX model.
On June 12, local time, SpaceX officially listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. The IPO was priced at $135 per share, with approximately 555.6 million shares issued, raising a total of $75 billion. This surpasses the $29.4 billion record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019, making it the largest initial public offering in global history.
Regarding this milestone in the global commercial space sector, Professor Shen Yingchun, author of "Commercial Space: The New Blue Ocean of the Space Economy," noted in interviews that the true value of SpaceX extends far beyond its reusable rocket technology. It lies in being the first globally to successfully establish a complete commercial closed-loop system, from low-cost launch services to satellite constellation deployment and achieving sustained profitability across the entire chain. This directly answers the core question that has long perplexed the industry: can the space industry achieve sustainable development through a market-driven model?
Professor Shen further analyzed that the successful listing of SpaceX holds multi-layered core driving value for the global commercial space industry. Firstly, it tangibly validates the investability of the commercial space sector, alleviating concerns among capital market participants and opening the door to the trillion-dollar space economy. Secondly, it establishes a new benchmark for an enterprise-led, market-driven development model. More importantly, this listing will compel a global acceleration in technological competition, pushing commercial space companies worldwide to hasten their pace of technological innovation and cost control.
When discussing the development path for China's commercial space industry, Professor Shen clearly stated, "We neither need to, nor can, replicate the SpaceX growth model one hundred percent." She pointed out that China possesses two core advantages that are difficult for other countries to match. The first is the world's most complete and powerful industrial manufacturing capability. Currently, China has established 55 specialized satellite production facilities, and its mature, end-to-end supply chain system can fully meet the demand for large-scale satellite manufacturing without any capacity shortfall.
More importantly, China possesses the world's largest emerging application scenarios, such as drone logistics, urban low-altitude transportation, and autonomous driving. This provides a vast application space and market demand for commercial space technologies.
Professor Shen emphasized that the development models of the commercial space industries in China and the United States each have their own core strengths, with neither being inherently superior to the other. The core difference lies in which model is better suited to its respective industrial development environment. The U.S. commercial space path excels in efficiency, relying on a fully market-driven competitive mechanism to force rapid technological iteration and cost reduction across the entire chain.
China's development path, however, excels in scale. Leveraging the systemic advantage of concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks, it can systematically address issues such as infrastructure construction, industry standard setting, and public risk sharing—areas that are often difficult to advance under a purely market-based mechanism.