CITIC Securities: Commercial Rocket Company's Listing Standards Receive Precise Optimization Policies to Help Promote Large-scale Industrial Development

The Zhitong Finance App learned that CITIC Securities released a research report saying that recently, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued the “Guidelines for Commercial Rocket Companies to Apply the Fifth Set of Listing Standards on the Science and Technology Innovation Board”, marking the official opening of the channel for commercial rocket companies to enter the capital market and the standards are fully clear. Under the policy's emphasis on “undertaking national tasks and participating in national engineering projects,” “reusable technology,” and “industry status,” the IPO process of leading private commercial rocket companies may speed up. As a “launch pad” for commercial space, the industrialization process of commercial rockets will directly drive the explosion of demand in upstream and downstream processes such as satellite manufacturing, ground equipment, and space applications.

CITIC Securities's main views are as follows:

Incidents:

On December 26, 2025, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued the “Guidelines for Commercial Rocket Companies to Apply the Fifth Set of Listing Standards on the Science and Technology Innovation Board” (hereinafter referred to as the “Guidelines”), marking the official opening of the channel for commercial rocket companies to enter the capital market and the standards are fully clarified. As a key implementation measure of the “Science and Innovation Growth Layer” system innovation of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the “Guidelines” accurately match the characteristics of high R&D investment and long-term returns in the commercial rocket industry. They not only provide financing support for high-quality unprofitable enterprises, but also define a clear investment anchor for the capital market.

Use accurate standards to select high-quality hard technology companies to break the bottleneck in industrial financing.

As the core infrastructure for commercial aerospace, the commercial rocket industry has the characteristics of high technical barriers, long R&D cycles, and large upfront investment. Most high-quality enterprises require continuous huge capital investment before generating large-scale revenue. This time, the “Guidelines” did not simply relax listing conditions, but rather transformed the vague scope of application of the previous Science and Technology Innovation Board's fifth set of standards for commercial aerospace into specific requirements that can be implemented from screening dimensions such as hard technology attributes, technical verification, and compliance capabilities to industry status. The “Guidelines” accurately resolve the contradiction between traditional listing standards and the growth rules of hard technology enterprises. By focusing on enterprise technological breakthroughs and strategic value rather than simply financial indicators, the “Guidelines” open up capital market financing channels for high-quality commercial rocket companies with real innovative capabilities. At the same time, they also select targets with real potential for development for the capital market, and achieve an accurate connection between industry and capital.

Judging from the details of the terms, leading commercial rocket companies with recyclable technology have clearly benefited:

First, it emphasizes “priority support for commercial rocket companies that undertake national tasks and participate in national engineering projects.” The bank expects that the certainty of the IPO process for leading commercial rocket companies will increase significantly.

Second, clarifying the phased results requirements for “the first successful entry of a medium and large launch vehicle launch vehicle with reusable technology into orbit”, directly hit the core technical direction of reducing costs and increasing the efficiency of commercial rockets, and also avoided the risk of listing of companies with immature technology. Previously, the Blue Rocket Space Suzake-3 launch verification case had set a technical benchmark for the industry;

Third, strengthen “hard technology” attributes and autonomous and controllable requirements, focus on key indicators such as core component research and development, and carrying capacity, in line with the strategic direction of national aerospace industry autonomy;

Fourth, investment by senior professional institutions, industry position rankings, etc. were taken into consideration, and strict approval qualification requirements were added to form a dual guarantee of market-based screening and compliance supervision. Prior to that, although the Securities Regulatory Commission had included commercial aerospace in the scope of application of the fifth set of standards on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the lack of detailed guidelines made the path for companies to go public unclear.

The bank believes that this policy design may accurately resolve the financing difficulties of commercial rocket companies before, and form a joint commercial space development policy with the establishment of the Department of Commercial Space and the promulgation of the “Action Plan to Promote the High-Quality and Safe Development of Commercial Space (2025-2027)”.

At the industrial level, policies may help form a “national team+private team” dual-path pattern and promote large-scale industrial development. The bank believes that the implementation of the “Guidelines” will have a positive impact on the commercial space industry in at least three areas:

The first is to accelerate the capitalization process of high-quality enterprises. At present, Blue Rocket Aerospace has completed listing guidance, and many commercial rocket companies such as Galaxy Power, Zhongke Aerospace, Tianbing Technology, and Star Honor are in the IPO counseling stage. The publication of the “Guidelines” may significantly shorten the review cycle, help enterprises break through R&D investment bottlenecks through listing financing, accelerate the iteration of key technologies such as reusable rockets and high-thrust engines, and reduce launch costs.

The second is to guide resources to focus on leading enterprises. The strategic significance of the commercial aerospace sector is highlighted. The technical threshold and industry status requirements set by the “Guidelines” may give priority to leading enterprises with core competitiveness and avoid repeated construction at a low level. At the same time, the policy's priority support for enterprises undertaking national missions will further strengthen the “national team+private team” two-wheel drive pattern and push China's commercial space to leap from “following” to “running side by side.”

The third is to activate the development momentum of the entire industry chain. As a “launch pad” for commercial space, the industrialization process of commercial rockets will directly drive the explosion of demand in upstream and downstream processes such as satellite manufacturing, ground equipment, and space applications.

Focus on repeatable rockets and accurately focus on the pain points of industrial cost reduction.

The “Guidelines” focus on medium and large launch vehicles with reusable technology. The bank believes that hardware and equipment costs account for a high proportion, and that rocket recyclability is an important way to reduce costs. According to data from the “Falcon” 9 Rocket Launch Cost and Price Strategy Analysis (Liu Jie, Ding Jie, Li Xiangyu, Wang Zheng, December 2022), the cost of the new rocket is 50 million US dollars, while the cost of the reused rocket after recycling the Level 1 and fairings is only 15 million US dollars. According to the National Space Administration, the Blue Rocket Suzake-3 reusable launch vehicle was launched into orbit on December 3. This is the first time in China that a first-level recycling launch vehicle has been tested. Private commercial rocket companies and research institutes within the system will continue to carry out rocket recycling experiments. At this stage, China's private rocket company has completed the first flight of a liquid rocket in the Falcon 1 type. The next stage is expected to develop a recyclable medium launch vehicle targeting the Falcon 9. It will participate in launch services for China's Starnet, the Thousand Sails, and computing power satellites. The rocket capacity and launch cost bottlenecks may usher in a breakthrough.

Risk factors:

Infrastructure construction in the satellite industry fell short of expectations; cost optimization fell short of expectations due to technical bottlenecks.