ITAR BROKEN

The Chinese did not give up easily and tried a number of strategies to circumvent the American ITAR blockade. They had some Western allies in the form of European communications satellite companies. Normally, they used some American compo­nents, but it dawned on both them and China that, if they built their satelhtes without any American components, they could legally evade the American restrictions and still launch on Chinese rockets, such satellites being “ITAR-free”. Several European companies worked with China. These ranged from large comsat – makers like Alcatel, later called Thales Alenia, which made entire satellites, to small companies like Belgium’s Spacebel in Angleur, which provided software to test computer circuits, while ETCA in Charleroi provided power condition units. Circumventing ITAR with European companies was the next challenge and, later, China would move to developing countries in the search of fresh customers.

China first got around the ITAR restrictions when it launched Apstar 6 on 12th April 2005 on a CZ-3B from Xi Chang. Its significance, though, was that the comsat was a Spacebus 4000 built by Thales Alenia. It was guaranteed “ITAR-free”, without a single American component – a significant break through the ITAR wall, although this had been achieved at additional manufacturing costs. With 38 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders, it was initially located at 142°E and moved to its assigned position at 134°E a month later. Apstar 6 marked the return of China to the world launcher market after seven years.

This was followed by more ITAR-free launches, Chinasat 9 and 6B, both built in Europe. Zhongxing 6B2 was launched on the CZ-3B on 5th July 2007 into an initial geosynchronous orbit of 233-49,721 km at 24.2° before reaching 24-hr orbit, where its 38 transponders beamed signals to China and the Pacific. Zhongxing 9 (Chinasat 9) was launched on CZ-3B on 9th June 2008, starting with a bum into an even higher super-synchronous orbit (245-49,592 km). This was a 4.5-tonne Thales Alenia Spacebus 4000 with 22 channels and 11-kW power. It was initially sent to 92.2°E to broadcast the Olympic Games, before turning its signals to the rural areas, where it was designed to reach 270m people using dishes as small as 45 cm.

This was followed by another Thales Aliena satellite, Apstar 7, for APT of Hong Kong in March 2012. It started with a record-high super-synchronous orbit out to 50,101 km before going on to provide high-power TV and com­munications services across Asia, Eur­ope, Australia, the Middle East, and Africa, replacing Apstar 2R, scheduled to operate until 2028.

China in 2007 signed an agreement with Indonesia to launch a new Palapa satellite, Indosat, in 2011, another Spacebus 4000. This was duly launched by a CZ-3B on 31st August 2009, but a failure of one of the engines on the third stage stranded it in an orbit of 221-21,135 km. The satellite was able to use its station­keeping motor with four burns to reach geosynchronous orbit on 16th September, much to China’s re­lief, although the fuel cost would reduce the satellite’s lifetime from 15 to 10 years.

The Americans reacted badly to Europe’s successful and entirely legal evasion of ITAR. In 2008, Republican congressmen introduced budget amendments to punish any European or other countries having any dealing with China, ITAR-free or not, such as keeping them out of the American aerospace market. This did not deter the large, long-standing international satellite communications supplier Eu – telsat, which, in spring 2009, an­nounced that it would commission Thales Alenia to build for its next satellite, Eutelsat 3C, ITAR-free, and have it launched on the Long March. The Chinese offered Eutelsat a price in the order of €35m to €50m, way below that of the Russian Proton. In the congress, Republican congressmen like Dana Rohrabacher (California) threatened sanctions against Eutelsat. He attacked the notion of the Chinese launching any commercial
satellites, saying that the technology would end up with rogue nations and countries developing weapons for mass destruction. China eventually launched Eutelsat W3C on 7th October 2011, but minimized the launch publicity so as not to irritate the Americans needlessly.