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Following the successful launch of the Long March 3, China began to offer its Long March series of launchers to the West. Little notice was taken at the time, but the situation changed when America’s launchers were grounded due to the loss of the Shuttle and problems with the Titan and Delta, while Europe’s Ariane was out of action as well.

There were several drivers of this development. First was the accession to the Chinese leadership of Deng Xiaoping. He reduced state space budgets and, in an export-or-perish drive, required the industry to find markets at home and abroad. Several space companies soon began to make consumer products, from motorcycles to refrigerators, to fund their core business. In May 1984, deputy aeronautics minister Liu Jiyuan allocated ¥300,000 (€30,000, or European Currency Units (ECUs)) for a feasibility study of providing commercial rockets to the world market,

the aim being to put up communications satellites. This was approved in April 1985 and first announced at the Paris air show that summer. China pitched its offer 15% below the then-prevailing Western prices. Several joint-venture companies were formed to develop communications: Asiasat (Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co., 1988), a Chinese-Hong Kong-British venture which later became a publicly traded company, and APT (Asia Pacific Telecommunications), trading as Apstar (1992), a Chinese-Hong Kong-Thai company, which later, with German investment, became Sinosat. A third, Chinasat, was a domestic company created by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, sometimes also called China Telecom, short for China Telecommunications Broadcast Services.

In the event, China’s first commercial launch was not a communications satellite, but a small Swedish Mailstar store-and-forward satellite, an agreement being signed as early as January 1986. The leader on the Swedish side was Sven Grahn, who was not only senior in the Swedish space agency, but an amateur radio enthusiast who had spent a lifetime following Russian and Chinese space signals, so he could not be more familiar with the Chinese space program. Eventually, Mailstar was replaced by Freja, a scientific satellite, launched with the recoverable satellite FSW 1-4 in 1992 (see Chapter 4).

The offer of the Long March was of considerable interest to Western companies trying to get their communications satellites into orbit. China set itself the initial modest target of obtaining 4% of the world launcher market. The Great Wall Industry Corporation was tasked with marketing Chinese launchers abroad and established offices in Europe and the United States. After several false starts, China signed its first agreement with Asiasat to launch an American satellite, to be called Asiasat 1, on the CZ-3.

The problem for both was that China, and the Soviet Union, were embargoed by restrictions designed to prevent them both from undercutting American prices and the intentional or inadvertent transfer of technology to China which might be used for military purposes. The Americans required any American company to get permission to launch an American satellite (or any American parts of any satellite) on a Chinese launcher. This clearly extended to any European satellite using any American parts. Granted the interdependence of the Western computer and electronics world, this effectively meant any satellite. The American embassy in Beijing at once told the Chinese government to back off, but underestimated the determination or, more likely, desperation of the launcher companies. China managed to win a contract to launch an Indonesian satellite but, when the Americans threatened to pull foreign aid, Indonesia caved in.

The Chinese were prepared to pay a heavy price to get their launcher to market and, after four years of negotiation, a Sino-American Memorandum of Agreement was signed in January 1989. The Chinese were permitted nine commercial satelhte launches for the period to 1994 – a quota extended to 11 satellites for 1995-2001, with the proviso that China would not offer prices more than 15% below Western rates. The language of the agreement was humiliating, imposing multiple commercial and security restrictions and requiring a lengthy series of commitments by China, with nothing guaranteed in return. These issues were not unique to China, for the

United States also accused Europe of undercutting American launcher prices with its Ariane rocket, but presumably the United States was not in the position to impose a comparable agreement on Europe. The Americans gave permission to China to launch Asiasat 1 in December 1989, only four months before a scheduled and penalty-laden take-off deadline. While awaiting launch, Asiasat was guarded around the clock by a team of no fewer than 18 American security guards. It duly launched in April 1990.

Asiasat was at the light end of the comsat market and new comsats coming on line were heavier. To fly the newer, heavier comsats, China developed a purpose-built heavy-lift version of the Long March, the Long March 2E (CZ-2E). Discussions were held over 1987 with the American satellite maker, Hughes, and the Australian satellite operator, Aussat (later, Optus), about how to best meet their requirements. The following year, China won a contract to launch two Hughes-made Optus satellites, with a target date of June 1990 (and penalties if it was not met), even as the 2E was still on the drawing board.

Despite its name, the Long March 2E fitted more naturally with the Long March 3 family and, like them, was launched from Xi Chang. The Long March 2E was a stretched version of the Long March 2, with more powerful engines (YF-20B) and four liquid-fuelled strap-on rockets. At lift-off, eight engines lit up simultaneously – the four core engines of the first stage and the four strap-ons – creating a tremendous noise (142 decibels). It weighed 463 tonnes, making it China’s heaviest rocket and, at the time, its most powerful. Price for a launch was €59m (or €82m for the CZ-3B). Development cost for the 2E was ¥350m, or €35m, including a new pad at Xi Chang. At the same time, China proceeded with phasing out the CZ – 3 (1.4-tonne payload), replacing it with the more powerful CZ-3A (payload 2.6 tonnes) and the even more powerful CZ-3B (the CZ-3A with the strap-ons of the CZ-2E, giving it a payload of 5.5 tonnes). The decision to build the CZ-2E was a controversial one, for it was an improvised, opportunist one, never an original part of the space program. The 2E went from drawing board to arrival on the pad in less than 18 months – an astonishing achievement for which Wang Yongzhi was later rewarded by being put in charge of the manned spaceflight program, where the CZ – 2F was in turn based on the CZ-2E.

The Long March 2E made its debut in June 1990, with mixed results, successfully putting a small Pakistani satellite, Badr, in orbit, but a simulated Optus test went badly wrong. The Perigee Kick Motor (PKM) fired in the wrong direction, back into the atmosphere, instead of into geosynchronous orbit.

The first fully successful commercial launch on the CZ-2E took place with Australia’s Optus 1 in August 1991. A hundred Australians and other visitors attended the launch in Xi Chang and the event was broadcast live on Chinese central television. Cameras switched between the rocket lifting into the early morning sky and its hopeful customers eagerly watching it climb skywards. The purpose of the Aussat Optus system was to provide radio and television services for remote areas of Australia, air-traffic control, and educational and medical services by television. China hoped that it would be the first of many Australian and then American launches.

The power of the CZ-2E is evident as it rises from the towers of Xi Chang.

Because of the failure of the Chinese PKM in the June 1990 launch, the Australians insisted on using an American kick motor, the Star 63F. When the second Optus, B-2, was launched on 21st December 1992, a cloud of gas could be noted emerging from the shroud at the top of the launch vehicle only 70 sec into the mission. The rest of the launching proceeded normally, but there was widespread consternation when it transpired that all that had reached orbit was satellite wreckage. It seems that the satellite met with a fatal accident about a minute into the mission but the shroud had contained the explosion.

There was considerable three-sided recrimination afterwards between the Chinese, the Australians, and the United States as to who was responsible. The Americans and the Western press blamed the Chinese for a faulty shroud that failed under pressure; the Chinese blamed the Americans for failing to attach the satellite to its upper stage sufficiently to withstand vibration. In the end, both the Chinese and the Americans agreed to paper over the cracks, eventually issuing a joint statement to the effect that neither the launcher nor the satellite was to blame! The Chinese recovered somewhat with two successful launches in 1994 – Apstar 1 in July (it operated until March 2006) and Optus B-3 in August, effectively replacing the satellite which had been destroyed two years earlier.

On 25th January 1995, Apstar 2, carrying another Star 63F kick motor, was lost. Fifty-one seconds into the mission, there was a catastrophic explosion and the entire launcher and satellite were destroyed. Television pictures showed the rocket crashing in an ugly billowing cloud of red, yellow, and black toxic nitric smoke. Six villagers died and 23 were injured. Mysteriously, the explosion appeared to start at the top of the rocket, not the bottom part that was actually firing at the time. Apparently, the Star 63 exploded again, but the shroud did not contain its force. The Long March was grounded while the problems were sorted out and more recriminations flew back and forth. In a repeat performance of what had happened the previous year, the next two launches went smoothly – Asiasat 2 (Hong Kong, November, with the Chinese EPKM) and EchoStar (United States, December). The causes of the two satellite losses – Optus B-2 and Apstar 2 – were never satisfactorily resolved, but the most plausible explanation, put forward by Phil Clark, was that the use of the Star 63F, for which the CZ-2E had not been designed, destabilized the rocket during the period of maximum dynamic pressure on the launcher [1]. Apstar returned to Chinese launchers again later, but its subsequent owners, APT Satellite Co., also used Russian launchers.

Then disaster intervened once more. 14th February 1996 saw the launch of a €70m American Intelsat 708 advanced communications satellite. This was the first flight of the Long March 3B, a new version of the Long March 3 able to lift a record 5 tonnes to geosynchronous orbit. Although a new version, it relied heavily on well – tested rockets: the main stages were essentially those of the Long March ЗА while the strap-on rockets had been verified on the Long March 2E. However, because the Chinese had received less than they had hoped in launch fees, they did not have the resources to make a test flight of the 3B before committing the new rocket to its first commercial mission. This decision proved calamitous.

Ground controllers were horrified as, a mere 2 sec after lift-off, the rocket began to tilt to one side, turned sideward, and exploded in an enormous bang 2 sec later, showering debris for miles around. The rocket fell 1,850 m away on a hotel near to where dignitaries were watching the launch. There was almost no one inside at the time and the ruins were later demohshed. The crash was so shattering that no large pieces of debris were ever found. It was a very visible failure, screened instantly throughout the Western world and provoking much comment about temperamental Chinese rockets. Whatever was involved in the Optus B-2 and Apstar 2 failures, this time, no one could argue but that there was a fault in the launch vehicle. The official

Asiasat 2. China’s first commercial launch was for Asiasat.

The first CZ-3B topples over, as seen on TV footage. Courtesy: US Congress.

death toll was six, with 57 injuries. The South China Morning Post reported that 100 people died when parts of the rocket fell on the village of Yi, most dying of toxic burns. These claims were strenuously refuted in the Hong Kong Standard, in which the Great Wall spokesperson insisted that most viewers had been well outside the 2­km perimeter around the pad where the rocket had exploded.

Western investors and insurers predictably later called the episode “the St Valentine’s day massacre”. Two investigating committees were appointed and international experts invited to join. The China Great Wall Industry Corporation stated that the guidance platform had gone badly wrong, causing the accident (as it was to do so only four months later on the maiden voyage of Europe’s brand new Ariane 5). With the crash of the Long March 3B, Western investors lost confidence in the Chinese launcher system and satellites due for launch on Chinese rockets became uninsurable. The queue of customers took its satellites (EchoStar 2, Asiasat 3, and Globalstar) elsewhere, mainly Russia.

China continued its efforts despite these severe setbacks. Some communications companies in the Asia Pacific region, especially those with direct links to China, had good political and territorial reasons to stay with the Chinese launchers, even if Western companies bolted. Five months after the Intelsat disaster, in July 1996, the Long March 3 put Apstar 1A into its proper orbit at 133°E, where it operated until November 2005, when it moved to 125°E, before drifting off station in January 2006. Then problems arose again: only the following month (August), a Long March 3 stranded the Hughes-built Zhongxing 7 half-way to geosynchronous orbit. Follow­ing this further failure, the Chinese instituted a rigorous program for greater quality control and launch safety, introducing international quality standards (the ISO-9000 quality mark) and a quality control company, the New Decade Institute, insisting that an international team of French, German, and British experts approve the reforms.

These measures obviously paid off, for, on the early morning of 20th August 1997, the Long March 3B eventually made its debut, lofting the Agila 2 comsat for the Philippines, a new customer. The placing of the satellite in orbit raised a few eyebrows, for the apogee was 44,500 km, far above the 36,000-km norm. Was this a bad engine burn, yet another malfunction? In fact, this maneuver marked the introduction of what is called the super-synchronous orbit, a hitherto unadvertised feature of the Long March 3B (and the ЗА as well). This is a clever technique of performing a very precise, carefully calculated, extra-thrust burn out to 44,000 km or so – one that produces a subsequent saving on the final insertion maneuver. The Agila launch was challenged by the United States, the Philippine company Mabuhay accused of undercutting the launch price agreement, but the Clinton administration did not pursue the matter further.