Alibaba and SAIC Bet on Space Robots Simultaneously; the On-Orbit Servicing Businesses of Guoyu Xingchen and Xianyin Weilai Await Validation in 2027

[[**The focus of competition in commercial space is shifting from satellite launches to on-orbit services. Guoyu Xingchen and Xianyin Weilai both secured funding of over 100 million yuan this year, with capital from Alibaba, SAIC and others entering the sector, but the 2027 on-orbit verification will be the key milestone testing whether this business can work.**

**Key Points**

**1. Capital is pouring into the space after-sales market**

Guoyu Xingchen completed a nearly 100 million yuan Series A; it had previously received investment from SAIC's Shangqi Capital. Xianyin Weilai, founded just one year ago, closed three funding rounds in a row totaling several hundred million yuan, with Alibaba and China Mobile's Chain Leader Fund leading its Series A, and Gaorong and BlueRun continuing to invest. Research institutions predict that the global on-orbit services market will reach $17.57 billion by 2031.

**2. The surge in satellites is creating rigid demand for "after-sales" services**

There are now more than 16,000 satellites in orbit worldwide, and Starlink alone saw 583 satellites fall between 2020 and 2024. The problem of satellites becoming obsolete when they run out of fuel is becoming increasingly prominent, and on-orbit refueling, maintenance and deorbit disposal have become core needs for the second half of the space industry.

**3. Commercial deployment has already been validated abroad**

Japan's Astroscale went public on the back of debris removal and grew revenue roughly fivefold in four years; the U.S. MEV-1 completed the first commercial on-orbit life extension in 2020; Northrop Grumman's MRV dual-robotic-arm servicing vehicle has launched; and DARPA has invested a cumulative total of about $420 million.

**4. The two domestic companies are taking differentiated approaches**

Guoyu Xingchen has adopted a pragmatic strategy: its first satellite has already carried 11 customer payloads and secured over 100 million yuan in orders. Xianyin Weilai is betting on the Tsinghua team's rope-driven flexible robotic arm technology to avoid the collision risks of rigid arms, while Trina Solar has come in to bet on future space photovoltaic assembly demand.

**5. On-orbit verification in 2027 will determine the sector's prospects**

The sector still has to clear three hurdles: engineering verification, customer bargaining power and geopolitical restrictions. The on-orbit verification of both domestic companies' robotic arms is scheduled for 2027; before then, all the commercial stories remain on the ground, and success or failure will directly determine whether capital stays or goes. 2026-10-21 17:07 Alibaba and SAIC bet at the same time, and the space robot "after-sales" business is open Xufeng Technology C-position quick overview

This article is from the WeChat public account: Tech C-Position, author: Dongmu Chu

A satellite costing hundreds of millions often meets its end in a rather pathetic way: it may not be broken, it may just have run out of fuel.

With fuel exhausted and attitude control lost, it slowly slides down its orbit toward the atmosphere.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center data shows that from 2020 to 2024, Starlink alone had 583 satellites fall from orbit.

At this moment, there are more than 16,000 satellites in orbit worldwide, with tens of thousands more queued up to go to space.

Who will take care of these assets in the sky? Who is responsible for refueling, maintenance and towing away the decommissioned ones?

Guoyu Xingchen completed a nearly 100 million yuan Series A, jointly invested by Yijing Capital, Fosun Chuangfu and Luyao Capital; it had previously also taken money from SAIC's Shangqi Capital and Oriza Origin.

Xianyin Weilai has moved even faster: just over a year after founding, it closed angel, Pre-A and A rounds in succession within four months, totaling several hundred million yuan. The A round was led by Alibaba and China Mobile's Chain Leader Fund, with Gaorong and BlueRun increasing their investment all the way from the angel round, and AgiBot and Trina Solar also squeezed onto the shareholder list.

Why has a sector that few mentioned a year ago attracted simultaneous bets from top financial institutions and industrial capital?

The answer lies in the shift in the industry's center of gravity.

In the first half of commercial space, the competitive focus was how to send satellites into space, with rockets and satellite manufacturing as the absolute protagonists.

Japan's Astroscale started out in debris removal, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2024, and grew revenue about fivefold in four years;

Italy's D-Orbit has validated through more than 20 orbital transportation missions that customers really are willing to pay;

the U.S. MEV-1 completed the first commercial on-orbit life extension in 2020. In July this year, Northrop Grumman's MRV launched, with dual robotic arms and a planned service life of 10 to 13 years; DARPA has invested about $420 million in this system cumulatively.

Research firm NSR predicts that by 2031 the global on-orbit services market will reach $17.57 billion.

Bezhesi's estimate is even more optimistic: in 2025 the global aerospace robotics market was already 89.479 billion yuan, with China accounting for 23.265 billion yuan, and by 2032 the global figure will rise to 241.995 billion yuan.

In 2021, Shijian-21 towed a defunct navigation satellite to a graveyard orbit; in January 2025, Shijian-25 launched and docked with Shijian-21 several months later, completing the farthest-from-Earth on-orbit refueling demonstration to date.

The national team has proven that this is feasible; what commercial companies need to prove is something else: whether it can be made cheap and turned into a regular business.

The two domestic companies happen to be two samples.

Guoyu Xingchen is the pragmatic one.

Founder Zhang Long worked in the space system for more than 20 years, participated in human spaceflight, lunar exploration and Mars exploration, and also served as president of Blue Arrow Aerospace for six years.

When he started his business in 2022, peers were all building rockets; he went the opposite way and plunged into on-orbit services, which few favored at the time.

He set three rules for the first satellite: the first flight must be useful, the first flight must succeed, and the first flight must make money.

In May 2025, Xingjiyuan-1 lifted off from Jiuquan; a 23-person team carried 11 customer payloads into space and made its first money along the way.

Today the satellite has been operating stably in orbit for more than 15 months, the company's order backlog has cumulatively exceeded 100 million yuan, and it has entered the supplier lists of the national satellite internet constellation, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and State Grid.

Its math is very down-to-earth: before the constellation is built, it will first support itself through payload hosting and component sales.

According to the plan, in early 2027 Xingjiyuan-2 will go to space carrying a seven-degree-of-freedom robotic arm, filling in the last gap in its full-stack capabilities; after that comes a service constellation made up of 16 space robots.

Xianyin Weilai is the sharp edge of the academic school.

Its technology originates from the team of Professor Liang Bin at Tsinghua University, which has researched space robots and hyper-redundant flexible robotic arms for more than 20 years.

It has chosen a more unconventional technical route: cable-driven flexible robotic arms.

If a rigid arm makes a mistake and collides, it may smash a customer's satellite into scrap; the cables of a flexible arm provide their own buffering, and during refueling the two spacecraft can even be 30 to 100 meters apart, extending a hose over like aerial refueling.

Space missions have no restart button, and a single collision means losses of hundreds of millions of yuan; the flexible approach is betting precisely on this pain point.

Alibaba and China Mobile led the Series A round, and Trina Solar came in at the angel round; the latter is betting on space photovoltaics, since future space solar power stations will rely on in-orbit assembly, and flexible arms are an unavoidable prerequisite.

However, a financing boom does not equal business success. This track must clear at least three hurdles.

The first is engineering validation.

There is no recall in space, and no restart button.

Communication latency makes ground teleoperation simply too late, so the robotic arm must make autonomous decisions; under microgravity, every movement of the robotic arm causes the entire satellite to rotate in the opposite direction, and after docking, mass and size double, so the entire control system must be rewritten accordingly.

MRV's engineers have spent more than 20 years developing solutions to this set of dynamics problems.

On the domestic side, Guoyu Xingchen's robotic arm will not go to space until 2027, and Xianyin Weilai's in-orbit validation is likewise scheduled for 2027. Before then, all commercial stories remain on the ground.

The second is customer structure.

The fattest demand is concentrated in the hands of national teams and large constellation operators, where orders are concentrated and bargaining power lies with others.

Guoyu Xingchen's hundred-million-yuan order is still far from normalized, replicable service revenue.

The third cannot avoid geopolitics.

Robotic arms are inherently dual-use technology; US media are already discussing MRV's offensive potential, and China's ShiJian-series satellite in-orbit refueling demonstrations have also been watched in Pentagon hearings.

The international market for this track may have a lower ceiling than imagined.

Over the next two years, there is only one yardstick for testing this business: whether the several in-orbit validations in 2027 succeed.

If they succeed, space after-sales service turns from a story into orders; if not, capital's enthusiasm will retreat faster than it came.

Satellites in the sky are still increasing at a rate of more than ten thousand per year.

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