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.""

Comments

Bad headlines, worse summaries

[Howzer]

From TFA: "A failure of such magnitude could have been caused by a major electrical or computer fault, or even a collision of the booster nose faring with the satellite during launch on its Long March 3B booster. Command errors have also been the cause of major U.S. European satcom losses in the past." (Emphasis mine)

Upshot? Lots of people have lost lots of sats. This ain't the first, won't be the last. So let's quit with the "made in China" fnarr fnarrs before they begin, eh?

From TFA: "...the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program"

Upshot? Yeah, but you can say that about every new launch which incorporates tech that's never been flown before. And you can say that about every failure in every "all-up" development program. Cheaper, faster --- gotta be a problem here somewhere...

From TFA: "Although it is a painful way to initiate reform, such a major loss has prompted Chinese aerospace to rise to higher standards in the past. Chinese quality control measures were tightened across the Long March booster program after fatal launch accidents at Xichang in the early 1990s. [...] The loss of such a critical spacecraft could spark similar reforms in the satellite industry"

Upshot? A big loss, but probably a bigger opportunity.

And that's about all you need to know.

Re:worst spacecraft failure involved loss of life

[cyclone96]

I'd have thought that the worst spacecraft failure would be one that directly resulted in loss of life, like that rocket that veered off course and flew into a town a few years ago.

A few other folks have pointed out that the Long March failure was (obviously) a lot worse. I think the author of the piece was making a distinction between a launch vehicle failure (what you have when a rocket flies into a village) and a spacecraft failure (the satellite is put into orbit by the launcher, but it doesn't work). This piece was in Aviation Week and Space Technology, which is considered the leading publication in the aerospace industry. The normal readership of AvWeek would make that same distinction.

Re:worst spacecraft failure involved loss of life

[ThosLives]

Eh, I'm in a good mood today, so:

I didn't say anything about an event (loss of life, in this case) as being acceptable - I asked if it was bad. Those are distinct concepts actually. In some cases, what is acceptable for one audience is not acceptable to another audience, and I also think that 'good' or 'bad' is independent of acceptance (though I hope that people accept the good and reject the bad). (Note that if you claim that one group's acceptance is more acceptable than another, you have to have some reason for claiming that, and that connotes an evaluation of 'good' or 'bad'; without those concepts, everything is just opinion.)

Next: define 'innocent'. I can't make any kind of response to your statement "Loss of life is bad when it involves innocent people" without knowing what you mean by 'innocent'. I know what I mean by innocent, but this is a word which has so many connotations that it's not possible to discuss without a firm understanding of what is meant by that. I'm not trying to be flippant here either - do you mean "has never committed a crime ever" or "has never been caught for committing a crime" or "was not directly involved in some other business which happened to occupy their current location (by intent? by accident?) and resulted in personal [physical] damage". Those are all distinct meanings and it bears being clear on which one is meant, because our, ahem, acceptance of situations depends on that meaning.

Next: Regarding the loss of my life: be more specific. If the infamous 'we' decides loss of my life is acceptable when I'm 93 and it hurts when I breathe, I probably don't care. If I'm running around murdering people, I'd say that loss of my life is acceptable. If I'm trying to save people from a burning building, loss of my life is acceptable. Heck, even if I get hit by a car, I can accept the loss of my life. I would even accept the loss of my life as a result of crime. Now, if you're asking if I condone actions that result in any of those situations surrounding loss of my life, that's a different question.

Think about this - is a flood "bad"? I will agree that a flood can be destructive (in the short term), but is it bad? Is it good? Or is it simply a result of physics?