spacetoday.net: China confirms Sinosat-2 failure

Posted: Tue, Nov 28, 2006, 7:25 AM ET (1225 GMT)
Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that a new communications satellite launched a month ago has failed and will have to be replaced. Sinosat-2 was launched October 29, but one of the spacecrafts solar panels apparently failed to deploy properly, depriving the spacecraft of the power needed to operate. Although word of the spacecraft's problems leaked out over a week ago, state-run media confirmed the failure only Tuesday.SinoSat-2 was planned to provide direct television broadcasting services throughout China. While another such satellite, SinoSat-3, is scheduled to launch next May, a replacement for SinoSat-2 will take at least three years to build and launch, according to SinoSat officials.