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:Bad headlines, worse summaries

[Sponge Bath]

what the hell are fnarr fnarrs?

Native Chinese predators that feed exclusively on panda meat.
Don't you watch the Discovery Channel?

wikipedia

[arun_s]

Slightly offtopic: I was searching for 'Sinosat' in Wikipedia, and came across this page. The outcome is already updated as 'Failure', with a reason given.
As a comparison, the article linked here at /. is dated 3rd December, and the wiki change was in the 2nd. I'm seriously impressed.

Re:Plastic junk

[Viraptor]

Then they've got another 372183628 of them on the production line, ready for cheap shipping to every major US and EU reseller...

Re:Plastic junk

[$pearhead]

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.

worst spacecraft failure involved loss of life

[Anonymous Coward]

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. I realize that the loss of a satellite might indirectly result in lost lives (or the lost opportunity to save lives), but I don't see how that can be compared with the direct death of many by a malfunctioning rocket.

Re:worst spacecraft failure involved loss of life

[ScentCone]

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

I don't know, this is China we're talking about. Loss of life can be a result of just having your blog veer off course.

Re:worst spacecraft failure involved loss of life

[Ginger Unicorn]

The problem here is the use of the word "worst". Worse and better are adjectives. You need a subject for them to be adjectives of. Perhaps it was the worst loss of financial investment. Perhaps it was the worst setback in terms of infrastructure to improve standards of living. It seems it wasn't the worst in terms of direct loss of life.

There is no meaningful "worst" in overall terms because there are so many independent apples and oranges metrics of which it could be the "worst".

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

[ScentCone]

Why? Can he fetch an 8 iron?

Nah. Because he gets really mad when he spends all morning using his nose to find one stray molecule of quail scent under a bush in 200 acres of fields and brush, and then stands there for ten minutes on point to show me where it is, and exhibits saint-like patience while I kick around in the cover to get the bird up into the air where it's safe to use a shotgun... and then... miss. You've never seen such a look of reproach. Plus, quail is some very tasty meat, and we usually share (although I think it's the butter in which it's sauteed that really gets the dog going).

However, I have no doubt that any good retieving dog would be happy to go fetch that 8-iron you threw in the woods out of disgust. We could probably get that process worked out in one afternoon. You bring a bag of liver treats, and we'll have it on his resume in an hour. The real solution, though, is to give up that silly game of golf, and try your hand at shooting trap and skeet. You'd like it: it's expensive, frustrating, and you have to keep buying fancy equipment, since only your other, less-expensive equipment could possibly explain any competitive failures. It's like golf, only you can easily kill yourself or someone else if you're not careful.

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?

Re:Plastic junk

[jimicus]

I had a talk about that back when I was in school. The chap giving it was of the opinion that the reason why things are so much better today is that a lot of Taiwanese companies got a bit fed up of being the butt of everyone else's "low quality" jokes (and probably figured it would be a lot easier to sell things worldwide if they did something about quality) and promptly instigated some reforms to do something about it.

Legend has it, a few years later a UK company placed an order for a million items (history doesn't relate what they were), with a note attached saying "We would expect your quality control to be so good that there would be no more than three faulty parts per million".

Fast forward a couple of months, the order came off the boat and arrived in their warehouse with a note saying "Please find enclosed the three faulty items under separate wrapper, though we can't imagine why you want them."

Re:Plastic junk

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

But it's up there. Some of the US's worst failures barely made it off of the ground. Some had people in them, too.

Some didn't even make it as far as that.

WTF !!

[minus_273]

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.

Audiophile tastes aren't exactly a good metric...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

That's the same group that will spend money for a bottle of "magic pebbles" to put on top of an amplifier to improve sound quality. Green CD markers, specially "treated" digital clocks, megabuck speaker cables, wooden volume control knobs, and other assorted audiophool insanity have pretty much destroyed any credibility that "audiophiles" ever had as far as judging the objective worth of a product.

If the audiophool market is purchasing Chinese products, it is out of last resort. The Chinese are among the last countries still manufacturing some types of vacuum tubes used in high-end sound gear.

Re:Plastic junk

[Paradise Pete]

In the 80ies

How do you pronounce that? eighty-ies? Maybe you could write 8ies, which I kinda like. Or plain old '80s.

Worst ever? No way...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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).

Re:How To Destroy?

[cyclone96]

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).

Re:Audiophile tastes aren't exactly a good metric.

[Ellis D. Tripp]

I wasn't saying ANYTHING about China or the quality of their products, you asshat.

I was critiquing the ability of the audiophool crowd to distinguish worthwhile products from technobabble, marketing scams, and flat-out bullshit. And how an endorsement by said group says absolutely NOTHING about the technical merits of a product. Here are only a few examples of the utter BULLSHIT that the audiophools buy into:

A wooden volume control KNOB for $500 (need 2 for stereo, BTW) that promises buyers that "The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved.":

http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/mercha nt.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C

Special "secret mojo" paint to apply to the D/A chip inside your CD player to create the mystical "tube sound":

http://www.altmann.haan.de/tubeolator/

A $1500 POWER CABLE that is described like a glass of fine wine. "The Clairvoyant's signature is engaging, energetic, and bristling with light and microdynamic life"; "lifelike timing and pace" coupled with "clarity, definition, lithe touch, and articulation throughout the lower registers."

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/audiomagic_clai rvoyant.htm

The previously mentioned bottle of magic pebbles to increase listening pleasure:

http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm

Re:Plastic junk

[tttonyyy]

Haha, good one!

My dad (who worked for Rolls Royce Aerospace in Bristol) has a similar story about aerospace engines which kept blowing up after being shipped and fitted at a particular location in the far east. Eventually they sent someone out there to find out why the engines kept failing. They determined it was because some critical bolts weren't torqued up after fitting. In the end they traced it to a translation anomoly, which indicated that the installer should "check bolts for looseness" - so the installer carefully loosened the appropriate bolts.

Urban legend, I'm sure, but a great story nonetheless. :)

Re:Audiophile tastes aren't exactly a good metric.

[Anonymous Coward]

A wooden volume control KNOB for $500 (need 2 for stereo, BTW) that promises buyers that "The sound becomes much more open and free flowing with a nice improvement in resolution. Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved." First of all, the knobs have a bronze insert for additional radial strength and improved harmonic quality.

Secondly, you ignore the multiple layers of C37 lacquer, which would otherwise result in over-dampening of the highest frequencies.

Finally, the knobs are only $485, a steal considering the labor that have gone into their design and testing.