Shanghai Minhang is relying on the strong “national team” foundation of the Eighth Aerospace Academy to accelerate its transformation into a core cluster of commercial rocket manufacturing and move towards a new era that is more open, diverse and efficient.<\/p>\n
Today let\u2019s talk about: China\u2019s top 10 commercial aerospace industry clusters in 2025\u2014Shanghai Minhang Rocket Manufacturing Industry Cluster.<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
Shanghai Minhang<\/p>\n
The development history of Minhang’s aerospace industry can be roughly divided into three stages: 1. Early accumulation of Minhang’s aerospace industry (1960s-1990s). In the 1960s, with the strategic layout of the national aerospace industry, Minhang became an important host site for core aerospace units. “National team” units such as Factory 149 (Ground Equipment Manufacturing), Institute 509 (Overall Satellite Design), Institute 803 (Flight Control and Inertial Technology), and Institute 806 (Development of Small Solid Rocket Motors) have been established one after another, providing important technical support for the Long March series of launch vehicles, manned space engineering, and overall satellite design. By the 1990s, the Shanghai Space Administration (now the Eighth Aerospace Academy) gradually integrated resources and formed full-field research and development capabilities covering missiles, rockets, and satellites. Minhang became the core hub of aerospace research in East China. 2. Industrial platform construction period (2003-2010) In 2003, Minhang cooperated with the Shanghai Space Administration to plan and build the “Shanghai Space City”, covering an area of \u200b\u200bmore than 1,000 acres. The Space City was officially opened in 2008, with the eight aerospace academies and multiple research institutes moving in one after another. Now it has become a general institute with overall defense and aerospace research and development, a complete scientific research system, and complementary professional support. It is one of China’s three major aerospace general institutes and an important part of my country’s national defense science and technology industry. 3. Moving towards the era of commercial aerospace (2015 to present) Since 2015, Minhang has actively responded to the national commercial aerospace policy call, relying on the traction of “chain master” units such as the Eighth Aerospace Institute, and gradually attracted a number of commercial aerospace companies such as China Commercial Fire, Shanghai Commercial Star, Litong Spacetime, Tuopu CNC, and Dome Technology to gather together, forming an industrial ecology of “leading leadership + echelon collaboration”. On this basis, Shanghai proposed for the first time in 2025 to build a municipal-level commercial rocket characteristic industrial park in Minhang to further gather upstream and downstream enterprises such as rocket engines, subsystems and parts, build a “door-to-door” final assembly supporting system, promote the development of industrial clusters, and accelerate Minhang’s move towards the country’s leading commercial rocket manufacturing core area. <\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
Industrial agglomeration<\/p>\n
In recent years, Minhang has gathered more than 120 aerospace companies, including more than 50 chain owners and high-growth companies, more than 20 central and state-owned enterprises, and more than 10 national-level specialized and new “little giant” companies, forming a benign ecosystem for the coordinated development of large, medium and small enterprises. In 2024, the scale of the region’s aerospace industry will exceed 42 billion yuan. <\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
Aerospace Industrial Park<\/p>\n
According to the “Minhang District Focus on Commercial Aerospace and Create a Space Information Industry Highland Action Plan (2024-2026)”, Minhang will rely on Xinzhuang Industrial Zone, Shanghai National Civil Aerospace Industry Base and Jiangchuan Aerospace Industry Base as the main commercial aerospace hosting areas in Shanghai to build a commercial aerospace industrial park with a total area of \u200b\u200bapproximately 3 square kilometers to promote industrial cluster development. <\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
Key enterprises<\/p>\n
90% of Shanghai’s aerospace system units are located in Minhang, building a commercial aerospace collaborative ecosystem with the “national team” as the core and private leading enterprises as the support, covering the entire industry chain of “rockets-satellites-terminals-services”. “National Team” chain main units: the Eighth Aerospace Institute and its affiliated core institutes such as Institute 509, Institute 802, Institute 803, Institute 804, Institute 805, Institute 806, Institute 808, Institute 811, Institute 812, Institute 149, China Commercial Fire, and Shanghai Commercial Star. Spacecraft overall companies: Hongqing Technology (satellite group), NationStar Zhilian (satellite group), Ningbo Zhihui (satellite group), Galaxy Aerospace (satellite group), Future Aerospace (space vehicle), etc.; Rocket component companies: Huanyu Aerospace (cryogenic storage tank), Jiuzhou Yunjian (engine manufacturing), Gaochao Dynamics (engine manufacturing), etc.; Satellite component companies: Huaxin Tianwei (phased array antenna), Zhiteng Microelectronics (measurement control system), Shupin Technology (space deployable structure), Navigation Star Transmission (servo system), Shanghai Hongye (radio frequency device), Qionglong Technology (laser communication), Sutai Intelligence (satellite chip), etc.; Satellite operating companies: Aerospace Hongtu (Nuwa Constellation), etc.; Satellite application companies: Hezhongsi Zhuang (satellite navigation and positioning), etc.; <\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
technological breakthrough<\/p>\n
The Eighth Aerospace Academy is the only comprehensive aerospace institute in my country. It undertakes tasks in defense equipment, launch vehicles, applied satellites, space science, aerospace technology application industry and aerospace service industry. It has successfully developed the Storm 1, Long March 2D, Changzheng 2D and so on. It has developed multiple Long March series launch vehicles such as Zheng-4A\/B\/C, Long March 6\/A\/C, and Long March 12; and has developed several series of satellites such as Fengyun, Yunhai, Remote Sensing, Gaofen, Shijian, Pujiang, New Technology Test Satellite, Communication Test Satellite, and Experimental Satellite. On June 23, 2024, the reusable launch vehicle developed by the Eighth Aerospace Academy successfully completed its first 10-kilometer vertical take-off and landing flight test at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. This was the largest vertical takeoff and landing test of a reusable rocket in China at the time, and was also the first application of a domestically produced depth variable thrust liquid oxygen methane engine in a 10-kilometer return flight. At present, the development task of the rocket has been transferred to China Commercial Vehicles for further advancement. <\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
policy support<\/p>\n
According to incomplete statistics, Minhang District and Shanghai have introduced a number of industrial policies, talent policies and industrial fund support measures in the aerospace field, and have built a relatively systematic policy system around high-end manufacturing, batch capacity building, and young talent protection. <\/p>\n
7<\/p>\n
future development<\/p>\n
On April 23, 2025, Shanghai issued “Several Measures of Shanghai to Accelerate the Cultivation of Commercial Aerospace Advanced Manufacturing Clusters.” It is clearly stated that Minhang will plan an exclusive development space, build a municipal-level commercial rocket characteristic industrial park, and support the introduction of special policies to accelerate the establishment of a commercial aerospace industry fund to comprehensively enhance the core competitiveness of the industrial cluster. According to the “Minhang District Focus on Commercial Aerospace and Create a Space Information Industry Highland Action Plan (2024-2026)”, it strives to form a batch manufacturing capacity with an annual output of 50 commercial rockets and 200 commercial satellites by 2026, cultivate 10 “specialized, special and innovative” enterprises, add 2 national-level and municipal-level innovation platforms, and create an innovation cluster with technological leadership and industrial support. At the same time, Minhang\u2019s industrial scale is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in 2026. It has achieved a number of technological breakthroughs in the fields of medium and large commercial rockets, liquid rocket engines, satellite platforms and loads, and satellite application terminals, and completed the verification of rocket recovery and return-to-orbit technology, helping commercial aerospace accelerate into a new era of reusability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shanghai Minhang is relying on the strong “national team” foundation of the Eighth Aerospace Academy to accelerate its transformation into a core cluster of commercial rocket manufacturing and move towards a new era that is more open, diverse and efficient. Today let\u2019s talk about: China\u2019s top 10 commercial aerospace industry clusters in 2025\u2014Shanghai Minhang Rocket […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}