Tianyi Space Technology (branded as Tianyi Research Institute) has formally filed for IPO guidance with the Hunan securities regulator as it seeks A‑share listing to finance a large commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation. The company, one of China’s earliest commercial operators focused on SAR remote sensing, presents its business as an integrated “make, operate, use” chain — designing and building radar satellites, operating them through a global control network, and selling processed geospatial products and InSAR services to government and state enterprise clients.
Over a decade Tianyi says it has flown 21 space missions and delivered 38 satellites, including a string of domestically named SAR platforms such as Haishi‑1, Chaohu‑1 and Fucheng‑1. It now plans a multi‑inclination, 120‑satellite constellation at roughly 500 km altitude. The architecture is designed to deliver 0.5‑metre resolution SAR imagery every 11 minutes between 60°N and 60°S, reduce revisit times for priority targets to under 30 minutes, and support nationwide InSAR coverage within two days — targets that, if reached, would put Tianyi among the world’s denser commercial SAR constellations.
Tianyi’s pitch is operational integration. On the manufacturing side it emphasizes in‑house development of radar payloads and platform integration, along with precision attitude and orbit control. On the operations side the company is building a global ground segment intended for automated constellation management, four‑hour tasking turnaround and 24‑hour service delivery. On the customer side Tianyi has developed an end‑to‑end product tree from L1 raw SLC data to L4 analytic services, and it is already selling InSAR solutions for building, transport and water‑infrastructure monitoring.
Today most of Tianyi’s orders come from government ministries, municipal authorities and central state‑owned enterprises — classic “to‑G” demand. Public examples include an InSAR campaign in Mianyang’s Fucheng district that flagged more than 100 at‑risk buildings, plus deformation monitoring of airports, railways, bridges and hydropower assets. Tianyi positions satellite InSAR as complementary to drone or terrestrial surveys: less flexible for ad‑hoc, tiny areas but superior for wide‑area, long‑term and repeatable surveillance.
Yet commercialisation faces sharp constraints. SAR satellites remain capital‑intensive: manufacturers at a recent Beijing aerospace fair cited single‑satellite manufacture‑plus‑launch costs ranging from tens of millions to over a hundred million yuan. The industry still struggles with a classic value‑chain mismatch — high upstream build and launch costs versus the price tolerance of many downstream commercial customers. That keeps Tianyi’s current revenue book concentrated among well‑funded government and state clients and slows private‑sector uptake.
Technology trends and market dynamics complicate the picture in opposing ways. Miniaturisation, modular payloads and lower launch prices favour micro‑ and nano‑sat solutions and can reduce marginal costs per revisit. At the same time, national strategic priorities and constrained launch manifestos mean capacity is a scarce resource, and large‑scale constellations require sustained capital and regulatory backing. Tianyi already has a strategic partnership with listed imagery firm CAS Space (Hangtian Hongtu) that blurs competition and cooperation within China’s evolving SAR ecosystem.
The immediate aim of the IPO is clearly to raise funds to build and sustain the 120‑satellite constellation and associated ground infrastructure. The listing will be a practical test of whether a vertically integrated, commercially run SAR operator can turn a capital‑heavy manufacturing and launch undertaking into a sustainable data‑services business. For international observers the outcome will signal how fast China’s commercial remote‑sensing sector can scale and diversify beyond state projects into recurring commercial revenue streams.
Beyond balance sheets, the story matters because SAR imagery and InSAR analytics are dual‑use technologies with wide civil and commercial applications — from infrastructure safety and disaster response to energy and environmental monitoring. A successful IPO and constellation could expand the global pool of SAR data suppliers, intensify competition in the geospatial market and lower the marginal cost of persistent monitoring. Conversely, failure to secure capital or customers would reinforce the narrative that satellite remote sensing remains a subsidised industry in need of policy support rather than a standalone commercial market.