China’s Qianfan, or Thousand Sails, low-Earth orbit internet constellation has reached about 200 satellites in orbit after recent launches on Long March 6A and Long March 8 vehicles. The latest documented mission flew on 7 April 2026, when a Long March 8 placed 18 Qianfan satellites into the target orbit in the programme’s seventh batch.
Qianfan is being built as a Chinese rival to Starlink and is operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies. The project entered service launch phase in 2024, with deployments beginning in August that year and continuing in standard lots of 18 satellites. Publicly stated programme targets call for 1,296 spacecraft in the first phase and more than 15,000 at full build-out.
The acceleration matters for launch cadence, production repetition and orbital spectrum competition. Long March 8 and Long March 6A are now central to the deployment tempo, with Long March 8 described as entering a high-density launch phase in 2026.