(Yicai) Oct. 23 -- China has managed to lower the costs of commercial rocket launches to sufficiently low levels despite still striving to achieve rocket recovery and reuse, with relevant service providers expected to offer commercial communication satellite launch prices close to those of SpaceX next year.

CAS Space's launch cost is about CNY50,000 (USD6,900) per kilogram, Chief Financial Officer Fan Na told Yicai at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center during the commercial launch of the rocket maker's Lijian-1 Y8 on Oct. 19. The cost can be further reduced to around CNY30,000 (USD4,140) per kg when the more powerful Lijian-2 starts operations at the end of this year, Fan pointed out.

In comparison, the launch cost of SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket is around USD3,000 per kg.

The Lijian-1 Y8 carrier rocket took off from the commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwestern China with three remote sensing satellites onboard. The launch marked the third international order completed by the Lijian-1, as one of the satellites is owned by the Pakistani government, with the rocket having sent 73 satellites into their predetermined orbits.

CAS Space is approaching the launch costs of SpaceX because of the differences in the supply chain systems between China and the United States, Fan said. Chinese suppliers have a faster response time, and once market demand emerges, upstream and downstream firms can quickly cooperate to form a scale effect, Fan noted.

"Under the US supply chain system, recovery and reuse are among the few cost reduction options," according to Fan. "However, even without achieving recovery and reuse in China, we can still continuously dilute costs by optimizing the response efficiency of the supply chain, conducting supplier bidding, and improving integration capabilities."

CAS Space is also actively exploring rocket recovery technology to further reduce launch costs, founder and Chairman Yang Yiqiang said to Yicai. Although the Lijian-2 will still be non-recoverable initially, the company is striving to overcome technical difficulties and plans to achieve recoverability for the first time in 2027, Yang said.

"Over the next few years, communication satellite constellation deployment will be the largest source of demand for commercial rocket launch service providers," Yang stressed, adding that the key to a firm's ability to compete for orders lies in whether its commercial rockets can complete such launches at lower costs and higher frequencies.

All Chinese commercial rocket companies are "in the red," an investor in the commercial space sector told Yicai. "However, as CAS Space's Lijian series will have higher launch frequencies starting next year, the company will likely break even within the next three years."

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev