Private firm inks intl contract for commercial rocket launch

China's Long March series carrier rockets. [Photo/Xinhua]

Landspace Technology Corporation, a private aerospace company based in Beijing, said it has secured a contract with Gomspace, a Danish company, to launch a series of satellites.

It is the first time for a private Chinese company to provide satellite launching services to the international market, the company said Saturday.

According to the contract, Landspace will use its Landspace-1 rocket to put Gomspace's satellites into orbit in 2018.

Landspace CEO Zhang Changwu said his company could not have won recognition from the overseas client without decades of efforts by Chinese workers in the aerospace industry, which has been developing for 60 years.

The total value of the global aerospace market could hit 485 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, according to market estimates, with the market value in China alone reaching 800 billion yuan ($116 billion dollars) during the 2016-2020 period.

Sun Jiadong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the aerospace industry matters not only for space exploration, but also for economic and social development.

The civil aerospace industry has great potential and will grow very quickly, Sun said.