China Stays In the Race
Launch Program Recovers After a String of Setbacks
By Ted Plafker International Herald Tribune
BEIJING - For China, the business of providing foreign clients with commercial satellite launching services seemed a perfect way to garner both international prestige and large sums of foreign hard currency. China's advanced missile technology has long been up to the task, and its low labor costs - including even for its top aerospace engineers -would allow it to undercut the launch service prices of Western competitors.
Though China now holds a mere 9 percent share of the world launch services market, analysts believe huge potential still exists. But they blame a series of technical and political glitches for keeping China's commercial launch program from yet achieving its optimal trajectory.
Things got off to a good start in 1990 when China succeeded in its first international commercial launch, using a Long March 3 rocket to put AsiaSat 1, made by the U.S. Hughes Corporation, into orbit.
Prospects continued to soar, together with both foreign and domestic payloads, as China compiled an adequate - though not perfect - launch record over the next few years.
But China's reputation began to sputter after a string of failures that started in January 1995, when a launch failure killed at least six people on the ground and injured dozens more. Exploding less than one minute after takeoff, the faulty Long March 2E rocket scattered flaming debris across a nearby village and destroyed the Hughes-made Apstar-2 satellite worth $160 million
The next year saw two more failures. In February 1996, a Long March 3B crashed during an attempted satellite launch, prompting the cancellation of several launch contracts by jittery foreign clients. Six months later, another rocket placed Chinasat 7, a telecommunications satellite built by Hughes and owned by China, into an improper and useless orbit.
By 1997, China was again succeeding, using a Long March 3B to launch a telecommunications satellite for the Philippines at a reported cost of $240 million, roughly half the typical price charged by French or U.S. providers.
According to John Pike, an expert on China's space program with the Federation of American Scientists, China in the past two years has ''largely but not completely recovered'' its reputation as a reliable launch service provider.
''But,'' Mr. Pike added, ''this recovery is totally overshadowed by the political controversy of the past year.''
That controversy concerns a flood of U.S. accusations charging China with pilfering sensitive U.S. military technologies over the past two decades.
Among other things, China has been accused of gleaning secret information from its scientific cooperation with satellite makers Hughes and Loral Space & Communications to improve its long-range missile capabilities.
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THE charges, formally presented May 25 in a report by a congressional committee chaired by Republican Christopher Cox of California, have spurred calls from others in Congress - and from several U.S. presidential hopefuls - for swift action. Proposals range from the implementation of stiffer technology transfer controls to the suspension of Chinese-U.S. space cooperation.
Both Hughes and Loral have denied any unauthorized technology transfers, and China has blasted the Cox report as ''despicable,'' ''utterly groundless'' and ''insulting.''
Denying all charges of espionage, Beijing has said its accusers are racist for assuming that China is incapable of developing all its own military technology.
''From the very beginning, China has relied on its own strength to independently develop its space sector. Its space technology now ranks among the world's top levels,'' Zhang Lihui, spokeswoman for the state-run China Aerospace Corporation, said June 6.
''Launching U.S.-manufactured satellites atop Chinese rockets benefits both China and the U.S. However, since last April, some anti-China politicians in the U.S. have been dreaming up stories about the issue,'' Ms. Zhang said in remarks quoted by official media.
In his statement responding to the Cox report, the Hughes chief executive officer, Mike Smith, said that ''a strong competitive, U.S. satellite industry is an important component in the protection of our country's long-term security interests,'' and he vowed to protect vital technology while continuing to compete in the international marketplace.
Until Washington decides what action to take, the China business of Hughes and other U.S. space industry firms will remain in limbo. Hughes has a long-term contract with China for between five and 10 launches by 2006, but according to one Beijing-based executive with a U.S. satellite firm, U.S. space companies are so handcuffed by security concerns that they are not even allowing Chinese nationals to enter their office premises in China.
''It is very bad right now, and it seems like the worst is not yet over,'' said the executive. Speaking anonymously, he added that the current woes came as an unpleasant shock after hopes for renewed cooperation were raised with the Chinese-U.S. exchange of presidential visits over the past two years.
''We're now taking a huge step backward instead of the big step forward we were all hoping for after President Clinton came to China last year,'' he said.
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ACCORDING to Eric Li, a Beijing-based satellite industry consultant with the British firm Claydon Gescher Associates, European firms sense a market opening. ''Now it seems that the problems are more political than technical and Europeans will try to take advantage of this,'' Mr. Li said.
When China last year launched its first European satellite, SinoSat-1, manufactured by the French firm Alcatel Space, top Chinese space officials spoke of broad new horizons for European cooperation. But according to Mr. Li, China would not voluntarily shut U.S. manufacturers out.
''It may become politically difficult, but China will still try to maintain a full range of satellites from a variety of suppliers, including the U.S.,'' Mr. Li said.
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EVEN AS it struggles to make the most of its commercial satellite program, China has also provided tantalizing hints about an imminent attempt to put a crew in orbit, perhaps even later this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary on Oct. 1 of the founding of the People's Republic of China. China is known to have successfully trained a pair of astronauts at Russia's Gagarin Space Preparation Center.
According to one Western diplomat, China already has the launch capability and, though perhaps not well enough prepared to guarantee crew safety, might be planning to take the risk of an early launch. Alternatively, China could launch an orbiting craft without crew, or with experimental animals aboard.
''I think it is coming,'' the diplomat said.
Mr. Pike agreed that China is eager to put people into space. ''A piloted mission is an essential component of demonstrating that China has stood up and is now equal to any other country,'' he said.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported June 6 that the 80-year old aerospace scientist Yang Jiaxi hopes to surpass John Glenn as the world's oldest astronaut. ''China is striving to achieve breakthroughs in manned space vehicles early next century,'' the agency reported, and said that later in the century China would land on the moon.
TED PLAFKER is Beijing correspondent for The Economist.
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