Chinese rocket fails to put satellite into orbit
- Source: Global Times
- [06:01 September 01 2009]
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By Liang Chen
The Indonesian communications satellite Palapa D, launched yesterday by a Chinese-made Long March 3B rocket, failed to enter its preset orbit.
The rocket underwent brisk two-stage separations but suffered a failure with the second ignition of the third stage, resulting in the satellite it was carrying failing to enter its orbit, according to Xinhua.
The Palapa D satellite, owned by Indosat, an Indonesian satellite communications company, was to provide satellite links and broadcasting services to Indonesia and other southeastern Asian nations, and it was expected to have an operational life of 15 years, with coverage of Asia, the Middle East and Australia.
Indosat ordered the Palapa D satellite from French company Thales Alenia Space in 2007. The design and specification of the satellite was undertaken by the Indosat team, according to Malaysian media.
The satellite was to replace Palapa C-2, the operational period of which will come to an end in 2011.
The satellite cost between $200 million and $300 million to develop and launch.
Indosat has already prepared a building in Jatiluhur, Purwakarta, in West Java, from which to operate the new satellite.
Experts are looking into the causes of the malfunction.
Four decades of Long March
Since designing its Long March series rockets in 1970, China has launched 117 rockets, ranging from the Long March 1 to 5 models, with a success rate of 93 percent.
A number of failures were encountered in the early 1990s but China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp gained back its commercial reputation by tightening quality control in 1996.
On March 22, 1991, a Long March 2E rocket, carrying an Australian satellite, failed to lift off as hundreds of millions of viewers watched the live broadcast on television.
Experts said problems with the launch of rockets is not uncommon.
"Launching a satellite is one of the riskiest businesses in the world. That's why each launch has to spend huge sums of money for insurance,"Wang Jin, deputy general manager of Century Satellite, a satellite technology company, affiliated to the China Aerospace Science & Industry Group, told the Global Times.
He said if the satellite was not far from the planned orbit, it is still possible for the satellite to maneuver into orbit by starting a rocket engine, though the life of the satellite will therefore be reduced.
"Even in the United States and Russia, failing to get into orbit or the rocket exploding is not uncommon,"military expert Dai Xu said.
Space failure sweeps Asia
This month, several Asian countries, such as South Korea and India, suffered blows to their space ambitions.
The national space agency of India announced the nation's first moon mission, launched amid much fanfare last year, but it came to an abrupt end Saturday after controllers lost contact with the unmanned lunar craft.
"The mission is definitely over. We have lost contact with the spacecraft,"project director M. Annadurai told the PTI news agency.
India launched the unmanned satellite and put a probe on the moon's surface last year in an event the national space agency hoped would give the country international "brand recognition"in the lunar business.
In the meantime, South Korea has endured similar grief with its most recent rocket launch.
South Korea on Tuesday failed to send its satellite, carried by its first space rocket, the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), into its target orbit.
Although the launch went smoothly, a problem of the payload fairing system caused the rocket to fail to reach its target speed, preventing the satellite from entering the correct orbit.
One hour after the launch, South Korean Science Minister Ahn Byong-man said at a press conference that contact had been lost with the satellite, saying it appeared to have missed its target orbit.
During the 10-minute flight, the space rocket underwent brisk two-stage separations. However, the commercial satellite's separation occurred 36 kilometers higher than its target altitude.
Agencies contributed to this story
