January 20, 2026 | 04:54 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - China has submitted two filings for the registration of huge non-geostationary satellite networks to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The submission is an initial step to secure frequency spectrum and orbits for the next-generation megaconstellations.
As quoted from Space News report, the submission was made to the ITU in late December 2025 and is recorded with the codes CTC-1 (CHN2025-79441) and CTC-2 (CHN2025-79398). Each document includes plans for up to 96,714 satellites spread across 3,660 orbital planes, based on ITU data.
CTC-1 includes advance publication information (API) and more detailed technical coordination requests, while CTC-2 remains in the API stage. Both documents list a "new operating agency" as the temporary identifier for the planned satellite network operator.
Overall, these two submissions are among the largest satellite constellation registrations ever filed with the ITU and indicate the increasing global competition for orbital resources and spectrum.
CTC-1 and CTC-2 are initial stage regulatory filings for proposed NGSO satellite networks and only provide a priority date, but do not constitute authorization to deploy satellites. The submission gives China until around 2030 to meet ITU regulatory milestones.
Although submitted as two separate NGSO networks as required by the ITU, they both appear to be part of a strategic effort to secure spectrum and orbital priority for future Chinese megaconstellations.
This step is seen as aiming to secure long-term spectrum priority, maintain various constellation development options in the future, and avoid being overtaken by earlier filings from Western countries.
The documents have not been reviewed and currently do not have regulatory standing. The next process will involve technical review by the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau and potential objections or coordination requests from other administrations.
Another submission from China indicates the plan of China Satcom to launch 24 satellites into medium Earth orbit related to the Guowang project as part of a broader architecture. In addition, there are two constellation plans from China Mobile, each containing 144 satellites and 2,520 satellites, submitted for direct-to-satellite service to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) last year. Commercial company Galaxy Space also submitted a constellation plan containing 91 satellites.
China is currently building the national Guowang constellation and the Qianfan (Thousand Sails) constellation supported by Shanghai, each planned to consist of over 10,000 satellites. The submissions of CTC-1 and CTC-2 are considered as initial plans for the next-generation constellations, amidst the development of global constellations, such as SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper.
For comparison, SpaceX initially filed the Starlink documents for around 12,000 satellites before expanding the plan to about 42,000 satellites in subsequent submissions.
Read: Indonesia Launches New Satellite to Bring Internet to the East
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