China resumes Qianfan launches after a pause
What happened
A Zhuque-2E rocket lofted ten more Qianfan internet satellites from Jiuquan at 0626 UTC on September 15, per Jonathan McDowell's orbital-catalog tracking. It is the first Qianfan launch in roughly two months, taking the constellation to an estimated 248 satellites. China's own trade press and tracker sites had not yet posted on the launch at run time.
Read-across for SES
Qianfan is one of three Chinese mega-constellations rated EXISTENTIAL-class competition for SES's sovereign-connectivity markets. A resumed cadence after the longest pause since the Aug 10 Long March 7A failure points to a resolved production or manifest issue, not a stalled program.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: 9h] China resumed Qianfan satellite launches after a roughly two-month pause, orbiting ten more spacecraft on a Zhuque-2E rocket from Jiuquan.