To go public as a rocket company in China, you first have to fly one.
That’s roughly the effect of a rule the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued in December, as part of a set of market reforms that has a handful of Chinese space startups lining up for listing on the STAR Market—the country’s Nasdaq alternative for domestic tech.
By transforming a technical accomplishment into a securities-compliance event, China has built a queue of companies where their progress on the pad tracks their progress toward a listing.
Fine print: China’s stock market has a specific pathway for not-yet-profitable companies to go public—designed for high risk, innovative industries such as AI, biotechnology, and commercial space.
Last year, China updated this pathway:
- In June 2025, Chinese regulators issued the “1+6” STAR Market reform, widening the listing standards for unprofitable companies with core technologies, including commercial space. Rather than imposing a revenue or profit floor, the standards require national authorization, a large market, and staged company results.
- In December, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued specific guidelines setting a threshold for commercial rocket companies. Now, applicants must achieve a successful orbital insertion of a payload using a medium-to-large, reusable launch vehicle.
Pad to prospectus: With these changes, China is seeing the debut of several new launch vehicles—and each company’s progress on the pad now mirrors its path to go public:
- LandSpace is the farthest along in the process of entering the STAR Market. Last month, the company made history with the successful landing of its Zhuque-3 rocket’s first stage—joining SpaceX and Blue Origin as the third company to land an orbital booster on legs. I
- In March, CAS Space—a commercial spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences—successfully reached orbit with the debut of its medium-lift Kinetica-2 vehicle. The Shanghai exchange accepted its IPO application the next day.
- Galactic Energy launched its first medium-lift Pallas-1 rocket on Monday, successfully reaching orbit. The company is aiming for a recovery attempt in late 2026 and began IPO counselling (the mandatory step before filing) in October 2025, but has not yet filed an application.
Burn rate: Not all launch startups have seen the same level of success. Space Pioneer’s first launch of its medium-lift Tianlong-3 rocket failed in April. The company filed for IPO counselling in 2025 and remains there.
Meanwhile, the path that these companies are taking means that they aren’t profitable.
- LandSpace is asking investors for ¥7.5B (~$1.1B) against 2025 revenue of ¥52M ($7.7M) and a net loss of ¥1.71B ($253M)—while projecting that it will reach profitability NET 2029.
- CAS Space is seeking ¥4.18B ($607M) and lost ¥748M ($105M) on ¥243M ($34M) of revenue in 2024.
Capital gains: It’s not only companies at the front of the IPO queue getting in on the action. Several Chinese space companies have made funding announcements in recent months:
- Satellite internet operator SpaceSail (also known as Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology) raised ~¥7B (~$1B) in a Series B to speed up the build out of its Starlink competitor, Qianfan.
- Launch firm iSpace raised ¥1B (~$148M) in the first tranche of a Series E round, following a ¥5B D++ February round. It has completed IPO counselling and is reportedly targeting a STAR Market listing in the second half of 2027.
- LandSpace’s satellite manufacturing affiliate Hongqing Technology announced a round of ¥1.3B (~$191M). Hongqing filed Honghu-3, China’s third 10,000+-satellite constellation, with the ITU in 2024.
- Launch company Orienspace announced a pre-C round worth several hundred million yuan on Aug. 5 as it prepares for its IPO and the debut of its Gravity-2 reusable rocket.
Each of these raises featured significant participation from state-backed investors, with asset investment companies affiliated with state-owned banks anchoring two of them, emphasizing the country’s strategic emphasis on the sector.
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ASD Eurospace, the trade association for Europe’s space industry, released a report this week built on anonymized interviews with 15 space industry CEOs—leaders of both A&D primes and newer scaleups. The results showed many industry leaders are disgruntled with the current setup of the region’s space sector.
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