CHINA ORBITS FIRST GUOWANG INTERNET SATELLITES, WITH THOUSANDS MORE TO COME

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

The first batch of 10 Internet satellites for China's Guowang megaconstellation launched Monday on the country's heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket. The fleet of up to 13,000 spacecraft will beam low-latency high-speed Internet signals using an architecture similar to SpaceX's Starlink network. China hasn't published many details about the satellites other than their intended use as broadband Internet relay stations. Guowang is managed by a secretive company called China SatNet, which was established by the Chinese government in 2021.