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Major Chinese Satellite Suffers Complete Failure
cyclone96 writes "China's most advanced satellite, the direct broadcast Sinosat 2, apparently suffered a major failure on orbit following launch on October 29. None of the solar arrays or antennas deployed on the spacecraft, and the Chinese are now mulling whether to destroy the spacecraft in the atmosphere. The article provides the following analysis:
"The catastrophic breakdown of China's new Sinosat 2 direct broadcast satellite is the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program and a major setback to China's development of a new generation of larger, more powerful civilian and military satellites.""
Actually, the quality of the stuff made in China have improved tremedously over the years. In the 80ies (and maybe beginning/mid 90ies), "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwan" meant inferiour quality. Nowadays I would almost say it's the opposite. Just one example: I know that many audiophiles who import amplifiers/speakers/whatnot made in China, due to the high quality and (relatively) low price.
May the Maths Be with you!
The author of the article is an idiot and one who has never heard of the long march. That is a video everyone should see. That is seriously worse that a satellite loss. The long march launches in the 90s were basically ballistic missiles launched at villages. The death toll from one is about 500.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Recently I have had the worst failure in the history of my personal space program... I was startled by a black bear while hiking and I threw my cell phone at it (generally black bears are not all that brave) and the cell phone broke! I am currently reviewing all policies & procedures that led up to this moment as well as interviewing various people involved in the selection and purchase of the cell phone. I am also thinking that perhaps the bear itself quickly entered some sort of "self destruct" command in the moments that it was near the phone. Another possibility is that some sort of debris collision or a micrometeor collision, but that is highly unlikely. I am at a complete loss to understand why my cell phone broke when I threw it at the bear, it hit some rocks and stopped working.
End of sarcasm here: Launching things into space is risky... expect things to break sometime!
TDz.
"the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program"
In my humble opinion, this description is a load of garbage. The loss of control of a satellite in orbit is minor compared to the of a Long March launch vehicle to the point that it exploded moments after launch and flaming debris crashed into the ground killing (officially) 6 people in 1998. The real number of deaths was probably much higher (some estimates place it at about 200). Given the cover-up of that event, I suppose the present example might still be the most serious recent failure the Chinese government has allowed their news media to talk about in any detail. Given the actual record to date, this event seems more like business as usual, but this time effecting a Chinese satellite, rather than a customer from somewhere else that the Chinese space agency could try to blame as the source of the problem (see the linked article for previous examples).
If none of the antannae deployed then how can they destroy it?
The antennas that didn't deploy are part of the payload (direct broadcast television). Most satellites use a different, low bandwidth omnidirectional antenna for commanding and engineering data. So the satellite is basically alive, but without the payload antennas deployed (or the solar arrays, which doesn't leave enough power to run the payload) it's not usable for anything (except maybe for some engineering tests since it's now essentially disposable).
Worst...sig...ever!