A really unknown one-year old Chinese company has grandioise dreams of becoming China's version of SpaceX with nothing to prove it exists except for a story in the People's Daily and a hard to access website.
The company calls itself Landspace Technology Corporation and identifies its CEO as Zhang Changwu. Its website (www.landspacetech.com/) takes forever to load while its Facebook page contains nothing more than renderings of its logo.
Despite these red flags, the company merited a story in the People's Daily (China's largest English-language newspaper) that said Landspace might one day compete against Elon Musk's SpaceX because it will be China's version of SpaceX.
Founded In 2015, Landspace Technology said it's "committed to offer new options for global clients seeking launch services." It claims to have anywhere from 11 to 50 employees, and it seems strange for a company not to know how many employees it has.
To prove it's a legitimate business firm, the company claims it's landed a contract to launch a satellite for the Danish company, GomSpace.
A check on its website shows GomSpace is a space company situated founded in 2007. Its mission "is to be engaged in the global market for space systems and services by introducing new products, i.e. components, platforms and systems, based on innovation within professional Nanosatellite technology."
Zhang said his company could not have won recognition from this overseas client "without decades of efforts by Chinese workers in the aerospace industry, which has been developing for 60 years."
He noted the Chinese government will choose a spaceflight company founded by Chinese to launch Chinese satellites before it chooses foreign companies like SpaceX. Very few companies like Landspace exist in China.
He also believes Beijing could block SpaceX and other international satellite rocket firms from establishing a foothold in China, giving competing Chinese firms a huge edge.