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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.

The failure of this largest, most complex spacecraft ever developed by the Chinese--launched by China's most powerful rocket--portends a shakeup in the management of Chinese space system testing and quality control.

The spacecraft's solar arrays spanning more than 100 ft. and its large antennas all failed to deploy as Sinosat 2 was maneuvered toward its geosynchronous orbit station west of Sumatra.

Built by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a huge Chinese military and aerospace contractor, Sinosat 2 was to be operated by the Beijing-based Sino Satellite Communications Ltd. (Sinosat).

THE LOSS WILL SET back Chinese plans to deploy a domestically built spacecraft to deliver direct-to-home television services to millions of Chinese from Tibet in the west to the highly populated east coast.

Ouch. And yet it sounds like the rocket works, and a number of the satellite's subsystems work, including its communication, tracking, diagnostic, and maneuvering subsystems.

Sounds like they just need a shakeup in the "solar array and satellite deployment mechanisms" team.

A regrettably successful failure... Wonder what caused it? Motor seisure because of the panels' size, or just flat out electrical failure.

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Didn't once a large launcher explode onto a village nearby the launch site? Or don't they count launchers as spacecraft.

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Apparently not... if it doesn't reach space.

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Didn't once a large launcher explode onto a village nearby the launch site? Or don't they count launchers as spacecraft.

Yes, they dropped a Long March booster on a nearby village back in the 1990s. That was a launch failure, not a satellite failure. It appears that the launcher worked fine for the Sinosat 2 but the satellite itself had some very serious failures.

Earlier thread:

Xinnuo 2 satellite Launch

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I take failures of this kind as part of the process. An opportunity to learn. As Doodler puts it, it´s a successful failure, in the positive sense.

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