Geely’s pre-production commercial satellite comes off assembly line

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On September 27, a pre-production satellite rolled off the assembly line at Geely's satellite manufacturing factory in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, marking the commencement of the scale production for Geely's commercial satellites, according to a post on the WeChat account of Geely Technology Group. 

Ceremony held to celebrate birth of first satellite at Taizhou Xingkong's plant; photo credit: Geely Technology Group

The newborn satellite was developed in-house by Geespace, a subsidiary of Geely Technology Group, and manufactured by Taizhou Xingkong Intelligent Connectivity Technology Co.,Ltd. (Taizhou Xingkong), which is also controlled by Geely Technology Group.

The plant of Taizhou Xingkong possesses China's first private capital funded smart AIT (assembly, integration and testing) center for pulsating modular satellites. It is also the country's first factory integrating volume production capabilities of both aero devices and automobiles. Besides, the factory adopts flexible production facilities to satisfy the assembly, integration, and testing for communications, navigation, remote sensing satellites in different specifications.

The Taizhou-based plant will feature an annual capacity of 500 satellites, said Geely Technology Group.

In February 2021, Taizhou Xingkong was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to manufacture commercial satellites, the second one in the country to obtain such permit.

Photo credit: Geely Holding

As part of efforts to build a space-ground integrated mobility ecosystem, the development of commercial aerospace business will support Geely in many fields like future mobility service, intelligent manufacturing, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) transportation, and city management.

Geely said it is ambitious to use its low-orbit satellites to provide low-latency centimeter-level positioning service for such smart mobility applications as cloud-based vehicle management, autonomous driving, automatic parking, and low-altitude flights.