U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting called for greater transparency from China regarding space debris this week, citing concerns over the recent breakup of a Long March 6A rocket's upper stage. The incident, which occurred after an August 6 satellite launch, scattered over 300 pieces of debris in low-Earth orbit.

While acknowledging some improvement in U.S.-China military dialogue, Whiting stressed on the need for proactive communication about space junk, ArsTechnica reports. "I hope the next time there's a rocket like that, that leaves a lot of debris, that it's not our sensors that are the first to detect that, but we're getting communications to help us understand that," he said.

Astronomy researchers are urging the FCC to reconsider exempting large constellations of low Earth satellites from environmental reviews due to growing concerns over pollution, safety risks, and the impact on stargazing. They argue that the decades-old exemption is outdated, given the massive increase in satellite launches and potential long-term effects on the ozone, climate, and environment. The Register reports: Astronomers from Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Arizona, among others, have added their names to a public letter that will be presented at some point to FCC space bureau chief Julie Kearney. The letter asks the FCC to follow prior recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which in 2022 issued a report calling for the telecom regulator to revisit its decision to exempt large constellations of satellites from environmental review.

The exemption was created way back in 1986, when far fewer satellites were being launched. The GAO, however, urged the FCC to review the exemption, citing the recent proliferation of satellites and the questions that have been raised about the sustainability of the exemption. That recommendation was recently echoed by US PIRG, which earlier this month made a similar request to the FCC. US PIRG notes that the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has increased by a factor of 127 over the past five years, driven largely by the deployment of mega-constellations of communications satellites from SpaceX's Starlink subsidiary.

A new study of broadband reliability finds a top-two finish that you might not expect from recent surveys of ISP customer satisfaction: Charter's Spectrum and Comcast's Xfinity, the two largest cable operators in the US. From a report: Opensignal's report, published Thursday, draws on software telemetry collected from April 1 through June 29 of downtime, consistency of service, and how well a provider meets basic thresholds for speed, latency, and other core performance metrics. Spectrum comes in first with a "Reliability Experience" score of 741 out of 1,000, followed by Xfinity with 710, Verizon with 625, AT&T with 546, and T-Mobile with 525. Opensignal chose those five companies to study because each passes more than a third of US homes.

But while Comcast and Charter employ the same basic cable architecture except for a few fiber-to-the-home pockets, Verizon and AT&T have mixed networks. That includes extensive and growing fiber service but also fixed 4G and 5G wireless from Verizon and hybrid-fiber broadband from AT&T, both of which lack fiber's speed and capacity advantages, plus obsolete DSL connectivity. T-Mobile's home connectivity, meanwhile, is almost exclusively fixed wireless.

Verizon has teamed up with another satellite operator to offer US customers a commercial direct-to-device messaging service for when a terrestrial cell network is not available, starting this fall. From a report: The telecoms giant says that US customers with compatible smartphones will have access to emergency messaging and location sharing, even when out of range of a cell tower, and from early next year it will offer the ability to text anywhere via a satellite connection, again with compatible devices. Verizon told The Register that there are no additional costs planned for this service, and any customer with a capable device can take advantage of it, irrespective of price plan.

It will be available on the Pixel 9 family of devices out of the box, with the Galaxy S25 to follow, a Verizon spokesperson told us. "Next year we will add text anywhere functionality to the emergency text and location services available this year," they added. This sounds somewhat similar to the Emergency SOS feature introduced by Apple with the iPhone 14 two years ago, which also enabled users to contact emergency services via a satellite link. Verizon says its service will complement Apple's iOS 18 satellite features, so customers using different devices will also have the ability to text anywhere. As partner for this service, Verizon has picked Skylo, a company that styles itself as a pioneer in Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) communications for smartphones and other devices.

The state-sponsored Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon is exploiting a bug in a California-based startup to hack American and Indian internet companies, according to security researchers. From a report: Volt Typhoon has breached four US firms, including internet service providers, and another in India through a vulnerability in a Versa Networks server product, according to Lumen's unit Black Lotus Labs. Their assessment, much of which was published in a blog post on Tuesday, found with "moderate confidence" that Volt Typhoon was behind the breaches of unpatched Versa systems and said exploitation was likely ongoing.

Versa, which makes software that manages network configurations and has attracted investment from Blackrock and Sequoia Capital, announced the bug last week and offered a patch and other mitigations. The revelation will add to concerns over the susceptibility of US critical infrastructure to cyberattacks. The US this year accused Volt Typhoon of infiltrating networks that operate critical US services, including some of the country's water facilities, power grid and communications sectors, in order to cause disruptions during a future crisis, such as an invasion of Taiwan.

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday night by French authorities on allegations that his social media platform was being used for child pornography, drug trafficking and organized crime. The move sparked debate over free speech worldwide from prominent anti-censorship figures including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy. Jr. and Edward Snowden. However, "the immediate freakout came from Russia," reports Politico. "That's because Telegram is widely used by the Russian military for battlefield communications thanks to problems with rolling out its own secure comms system. It's also the primary vehicle for pro-war military bloggers and media -- as well as millions of ordinary Russians." From the report: "They practically detained the head of communication of the Russian army," Russian military blogger channel Povernutie na Z Voine said in a Telegram statement. The blog site Dva Mayora said that Russian specialists are working on an alternative to Telegram, but that the Russian army's Main Communications Directorate has "not shown any real interest" in getting such a system to Russian troops. The site said Durov's arrest may actually speed up the development of an independent comms system. Alarmed Russian policymakers are calling for Durov's release.

"[Durov's] arrest may have political grounds and be a tool for gaining access to the personal information of Telegram users," the Deputy Speaker of the Russian Duma Vladislav Davankov said in a Telegram statement. "This cannot be allowed. If the French authorities refuse to release Pavel Durov from custody, I propose making every effort to move him to the UAE or the Russian Federation. With his consent, of course." Their worry is that Durov may hand over encryption keys to the French authorities, allowing access to the platform and any communications that users thought was encrypted.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the arrest of Durov was "in no way a political decision." The Russian embassy has demanded that it get access to Durov, but the Kremlin has so far not issued a statement on the arrest. "Before saying anything, we should wait for the situation to become clearer," said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. However, officials and law enforcement agencies were instructed to clear all their communication from Telegram, the pro-Kremlin channel Baza reported. "Everyone who is used to using the platform for sensitive conversations/conversations should delete those conversations right now and not do it again," Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan said in a Telegram post. "Durov has been shut down to get the keys. And he's going to give them."

America's Department of Energy has three R&D labs, according to Wikipedia, one of which is Sandia National Labs. And that New Mexico-based lab has just announced that "A milestone in quantum sensing is drawing closer, promising exquisitely accurate, GPS-free navigation." with research into "a motion sensor so precise it could minimize the nation's reliance on global positioning satellites." Until recently, such a sensor — a thousand times more sensitive than today's navigation-grade devices — would have filled a moving truck. But advancements are dramatically shrinking the size and cost of this technology. For the first time, researchers from Sandia National Laboratories have used silicon photonic microchip components to perform a quantum sensing technique called atom interferometry, an ultra-precise way of measuring acceleration. It is the latest milestone toward developing a kind of quantum compass for navigation when GPS signals are unavailable. The team published its findings and introduced a new high-performance silicon photonic modulator — a device that controls light on a microchip — as the cover story in the journal Science Advances... The new modulator is the centerpiece of a laser system on a microchip. Rugged enough to handle heavy vibrations, it would replace a conventional laser system typically the size of a refrigerator...

Besides size, cost has been a major obstacle to deploying quantum navigation devices. Every atom interferometer needs a laser system, and laser systems need modulators. "Just one full-size single-sideband modulator, a commercially available one, is more than $10,000," said Sandia scientist Jongmin Lee. Miniaturizing bulky, expensive components into silicon photonic chips helps drive down these costs. "We can make hundreds of modulators on a single 8-inch wafer and even more on a 12-inch wafer," Kodigala said. And since they can be manufactured using the same process as virtually all computer chips, "This sophisticated four-channel component, including additional custom features, can be mass-produced at a much lower cost compared to today's commercial alternatives, enabling the production of quantum inertial measurement units at a reduced cost," Lee said.

As the technology gets closer to field deployment, the team is exploring other uses beyond navigation. Researchers are investigating whether it could help locate underground cavities and resources by detecting the tiny changes these make to Earth's gravitational force. They also see potential for the optical components they invented, including the modulator, in LIDAR, quantum computing, and optical communications.
Thanks to Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

The nonprofit American Radio Relay League — founded in 1914 — has approximately 161,000 members, according to Wikipedia (with over 7,000 members outside the U.S.)

But sometime in early May its systems network was compromised, "by threat actors using information they had purchased on the dark web," the nonprofit announced this week. The attackers accessed the ARRL's on-site systems — as well as most of its cloud-based systems — using "a wide variety of payloads affecting everything from desktops and laptops to Windows-based and Linux-based servers." Despite the wide variety of target configurations, the threat actors seemed to have a payload that would host and execute encryption or deletion of network-based IT assets, as well as launch demands for a ransom payment, for every system... The FBI categorized the attack as "unique" as they had not seen this level of sophistication among the many other attacks, they have experience with.

Within 3 hours a crisis management team had been constructed of ARRL management, an outside vendor with extensive resources and experience in the ransomware recovery space, attorneys experienced with managing the legal aspects of the attack including interfacing with the authorities, and our insurance carrier. The authorities were contacted immediately as was the ARRL President... [R]ansom demands were dramatically weakened by the fact that they did not have access to any compromising data. It was also clear that they believed ARRL had extensive insurance coverage that would cover a multi-million-dollar ransom payment. After days of tense negotiation and brinkmanship, ARRL agreed to pay a $1 million ransom. That payment, along with the cost of restoration, has been largely covered by our insurance policy...

Today, most systems have been restored or are waiting for interfaces to come back online to interconnect them. While we have been in restoration mode, we have also been working to simplify the infrastructure to the extent possible. We anticipate that it may take another month or two to complete restoration under the new infrastructure guidelines and new standards.
ARRL's called the attack "extensive", "sophisticated", "highly coordinated" and "an act of organized crime". And tlhIngan (Slashdot reader #30335) shared this detail from BleepingComputer.

"While the organization has not yet linked the attack to a specific ransomware operation, sources told BleepingComputer that the Embargo ransomware gang was behind the breach."

Telegram's billionaire founder/CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday night outside Paris, reports Reuters, citing French TV news stations TF1 TV and BFM TV which attributed the news to unnamed sources: Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation. TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the news.

The Verge's Adi Robertson reports: An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling (PDF) issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn't block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can't be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.

Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages from anonymized users that -- he believed -- he likely knew. Bride and his family attempted to contact Yolo for help, but Yolo allegedly never answered, and in some cases, emails to the company simply bounced. Snap banned Yolo and another app targeted in the lawsuit, and a year later, it banned all anonymous messaging integration. Bride's family and a collection of other aggrieved parents argued that Yolo broke a legally binding promise to its users. They pointed to a notification where Yolo claimed people would be banned for inappropriate use and deanonymized if they sent "harassing messages" to others. But as the ruling summarizes, the plaintiffs argued that "with a staff of no more than ten people, there was no way Yolo could monitor the traffic of ten million active daily users to make good on its promise, and it in fact never did." Additionally, they claimed Yolo should have known its anonymous design facilitated harassment, making it defective and dangerous.

A lower court threw out both of these claims, saying that under Section 230, Yolo couldn't be held responsible for its users' posts. The appeals court was more sympathetic. It accepted the argument that families were instead holding Yolo responsible for promising users something it couldn't deliver. "Yolo repeatedly informed users that it would unmask and ban users who violated the terms of service. Yet it never did so, and may have never intended to," writes Judge Eugene Siler, Jr. "While yes, online content is involved in these facts, and content moderation is one possible solution for Yolo to fulfill its promise, the underlying duty ... is the promise itself." The Yolo suit built on a previous Ninth Circuit ruling that let another Snap-related lawsuit circumvent Section 230's shield. In 2021, it found Snap could be sued for a "speed filter" that could implicitly encourage users to drive recklessly, even if users were responsible for making posts with that filter. (The overall case is still ongoing.) On top of their misrepresentation claim, the plaintiffs argued Yolo's anonymous messaging capability was similarly risky, an argument the Ninth Circuit didn't buy -- "we refuse to endorse a theory that would classify anonymity as a per se inherently unreasonable risk," Siler wrote.

New submitter ElimGarak000 shares a report from CyberScoop: The Texas-based voice service provider that sent AI-generated robocalls of President Joe Biden to New Hampshire voters ahead of its Democratic presidential primary has agreed to pay a $1 million fine and implement enhanced verification protocols designed to prevent robocalls and phone number spoofing in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission. The fine represents half the amount the FCC was originally seeking in an enforcement action proposed against Lingo Telecom in May. Despite that, agency leaders characterized the settlement (PDF) as a successful effort to defend U.S. telecommunications networks and election infrastructure from nascent AI and deepfake technologies. [...]

In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Lingo Telecom to follow regulatory protocols that were put in place in 2020 to ensure telecommunications carriers authenticate caller identities using their networks. The protocols, known as STIR/SHAKEN, require carriers like Lingo to digitally verify and formally attest to the FCC that callers are legitimate and own the phone number they display on Caller ID. In the New Hampshire robocall case, Kramer and Life Corporation spoofed the phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic party official who was running a write-in campaign for Biden.

The FCC cited Lingo's inability to properly implement and enforce STIR/SHAKEN as a key failure in a February cease-and-desist letter, and again in May when the agency proposed a $2 million enforcement action. The company was also named in a civil lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and New Hampshire residents, seeking damages over the incident. Per terms of the settlement, Lingo Telecom must hire a senior manager knowledgeable in STIR/SHAKEN protocols and develop a compliance plan, new operating procedures and training programs. They must also report any incidents of non-compliance with STIR/SHAKEN within 15 days of discovery. "Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. "If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line."

Bloomberg's Mark Gruman remembers how Apple's hardware group "allowed Apple to dump Intel chips from its entire Mac lineup."

And they're now building an in-house cellular modem: For more than a decade, Apple has used modem chips designed by Qualcomm... But in 2018 — while facing a legal battle over royalties and patents — Apple started work on its own modem design.... It's devoting billions of dollars, thousands of engineers and millions of working hours to a project that won't really improve its devices — at least at the outset...

Over the past few years, Apple's modem project has suffered numerous setbacks. There have been problems with performance and overheating, and Apple has been forced to push back the modem's debut until next year at the earliest. The rollout will take place on a gradual basis — starting with niche models — and take a few years to complete. In a sign of this slow transition, Apple extended its supplier agreement with Qualcomm through March 2027... But Qualcomm has said that Apple will still have to pay it some royalties regardless (the chipmaker believes that Apple won't be able to avoid infringing its patents).

So it's hard to tell how big the benefits will be in the near term. Down the road, there are plans for Apple to fold its modem design into a new wireless chip that handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth access. That would create a single connectivity component, potentially improving reliability and battery life. There's also the possibility that Apple could one day combine all of this into the device's main system on a chip, or SoC. That could further cut costs and save space inside the iPhone, allowing for more design choices. Furthermore, if Apple does ultimately save money by switching away from Qualcomm, it could redirect that spending toward new features and components.

17,000 AT&T workers from the CWA union went on strike Friday. NPR notes the strike affects workers in nine states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. A North Carolina newspaper says the union will remain on strike until they believe AT&T "begins to bargain over a new contract in good faith" after their previous contract expired back on August 3.

And meanwhile, their article notes that the strike comes as some AT&T customers in North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area "report prolonged internet outages." Saturday afternoon, AT&T also reported internet outages within a circle of northern Charlotte neighborhoods. "As far as the impact, the trained, experienced CWA members who are on strike do critical work installing, maintaining and supporting AT&T's residential and business wireline telecommunications network," CWA communications director Beth Allen said. "Customers should be aware that these workers will not be available to respond to service calls during the strike."

Since at least Wednesday, AT&T internet customers in Durham have reported being without residential service. According to the company's website, outages have been detected across a wide section of the city, including downtown and around Duke University.

AT&T has alerted some affected residents in southwest Durham their internet service "should be online" by Tuesday morning.
An AT&T spokesperson told the newspaper that "We have various business continuity measures in place to avoid disruptions to operations and will continue to provide our customers with the great service they expect."

A union executive said in a statement that AT&T's contract negotiators "did not seem to have the actual bargaining authority required by the legal obligation to bargain in good faith. Our members want to be on the job, providing the quality service that our customers deserve. It's time for AT&T to start negotiating in good faith so that we can move forward towards a fair contract."

AT&T and Verizon are urging the FCC to reject SpaceX's plan to offer cellular service with T-Mobile, arguing that it would cause harmful interference to terrestrial mobile networks. Ars Technica reports: Filings urging the Federal Communications Commission to deny SpaceX's request for a waiver were submitted by AT&T and Verizon this week. The plan by SpaceX's Starlink division also faces opposition from satellite companies EchoStar (which owns Dish and Hughes) and Omnispace. SpaceX and T-Mobile plan to offer Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) for T-Mobile's cellular network using SpaceX satellites. As part of that plan, SpaceX is seeking a waiver of FCC rules regarding out-of-band emission limits.

AT&T's petition to deny the SpaceX waiver request said the FCC's "recent SCS order appropriately recognized that SCS deployments should not present any risk to the vital terrestrial mobile broadband networks upon which millions of Americans rely today. The Commission authorized SCS as secondary to terrestrial mobile service, correctly explaining that the SCS framework must 'retain service quality of terrestrial networks, protect spectrum usage rights, and minimize the risk of harmful interference.'" AT&T said SpaceX's requested "ninefold increase" to the allowable power flux-density limits for out-of-band emissions "would cause unacceptable harmful interference to incumbent terrestrial mobile operations. Specifically, AT&T's technical analysis shows that SpaceX's proposal would cause an 18% average reduction in network downlink throughput in an operational and representative AT&T PCS C Block market deployment." Verizon's opposition to the waiver request similarly said that SpaceX's proposal "would subject incumbent, primary terrestrial licensee operations in adjacent bands to harmful interference." Wireless phone performance will suffer, Verizon said [...]. SpaceX and T-Mobile told FCC staff that their plan will not harm other wireless operations and predicted that competitors will make misleading claims. SpaceX also argued that the FCC's emissions limit is too strict and should be changed.

Google's Brian Rakowski announced today that the new Pixel 9 lineup will be the first Android phones to feature Satellite SOS. The Verge reports: The feature launches first in the US "regardless of your carrier plan," Rakowski said, though it won't be available in Hawaii and Alaska, per a support page. According to fine print shown during Google's livestream, the service will be included "at no additional charge for the first two years after activation of devices." A blog post by Rakowski qualifies that further, saying that it will be free for those first two years "on Pixel." And it's unclear when the feature might arrive for other Android phones.

Over the weekend, former President Donald Trump's campaign said that it had been hacked, with internal documents reportedly obtained illegally by foreign sources to interfere with the 2024 election. While the Trump campaign claimed that Iran was responsible, it is unclear who exactly was behind the incident. The FBI said it was aware of the allegations and confirmed Monday that it is "investigating this matter." The Hill reports: U.S. agencies have thus far failed to comment on the claims that Iran was responsible for the hack, even as recent intelligence community reports have noted growing Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. election. "This is something we've raised for some time, raised concerns that Iranian cyber actors have been seeking to influence elections around the world including those happening in the United States," John Kirby, the White House's national security communications adviser, told reporters Monday. "These latest attempts to interfere in U.S. elections is nothing new for the Iranian regime, which from our vantage point has attempted to undermine democracies for many years now."

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released last month noted Iranian efforts designed to "fuel distrust in U.S. political institutions and increase social discord." "The IC has observed Tehran working to influence the presidential election, probably because Iranian leaders want to avoid an outcome they perceive would increase tensions with the United States. Tehran relies on vast webs of online personas and propaganda mills to spread disinformation," the report states, including being particularly active on exacerbating tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict.

In an effort to beef up protections for consumers against corporations, the Biden administration on Monday announced a handful of policies to crack down on "headaches and hassles that waste Americans' time and money." From a report: Through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the administration will ask companies to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions and memberships as it is to sign up for them, and through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new rule will require companies to let customers cut through automated customer service "doom loops" by pressing a single button to reach a real person.

"For a lot of services, it takes one or two clicks on your phone to sign up. It should take one or two clicks on your phone to end the service," White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said on a call with reporters to discuss the new policies. Consumers could see the new rule applied to gym memberships or subscriptions with phone and internet companies. The administration will also call on health insurance companies to allow claims to be submitted online, rather than requiring insured customers to print out and mail forms in for coverage.

CNN reports: Former President Donald Trump's campaign said Saturday in a statement that it had been hacked.

Politico reported earlier Saturday that it had received emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump's campaign operation. "These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNN.

Cheung pointed to a recent report published by Microsoft that said Iranian operatives had ramped up their attempts to influence and monitor the US presidential election by creating fake news outlets targeting liberal and conservative voters and by trying to hack an unnamed presidential campaign... Still, it's not clear whether Iran was responsible for the hack. CNN has reached out to the Iranian mission to the United Nations for comment...

Politico reported it had received emails that contained internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official and a [271-page] research dossier the campaign had put together on Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The dossier included what the Trump campaign identified as Vance's potential vulnerabilities...

In 2016, days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee server.

The FCC has proposed new rules governing the use of AI-generated phone calls and texts. Part of the proposal centers on create a clear definition for AI-generated calls, with the rest focuses on consumer protection by making companies disclose when AI is being used in calls or texts. A report adds: "This provides consumers with an opportunity to identify and avoid those calls or texts that contain an enhanced risk of fraud and other scams," the FCC said. The agency is also looking ensure that legitimate uses of AI to assist people with disabilities to communicate remains protected.

An anonymous reader quotes a report originally published by Business Insider: A Chinese state-backed company has launched its first 18 satellites in its bid to build a vast orbital network aimed at rivaling Starlink, according to local media. The launch on Monday by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology involved 18 satellites and one rocket, per The China Securities Journal, which is run by state news agency Xinhua. According to the outlet, the rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan satellite and missile launch center in Shanxi province.

These satellites mark the first step in the company's effort to create a 15,000-strong network of Low Earth Orbit satellites, which the firm has dubbed the "Thousand Sails Constellation." The company said it plans to reach that final tally by 2030, per The China Securities Journal. Domestic media has widely called the project the Chinese version of Starlink, which runs about 6,000 satellites. Elon Musk has said that he plans to eventually host a network of 42,000 satellites.

The Thousand Sails Constellation, also known as the G60 project, is one of three planned major satellite networks in the country. Each is expected to field 10,000 or more satellites. Most are anticipated to orbit between 200 and 1,200 miles above the Earth's surface, which is also where Starlink satellites are generally found. The three constellations, along with dozens of ambitious space projects from other Chinese firms, have been fueled by a recent push from the central government to loop the private sector into its science and technology goals.