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Satellites and Spies in China Charles R. Smith The Chinese space program suffered a major setback with the loss of Sinosat II.
The satellite was designed to broadcast TV (including the upcoming Olympic games) directly to over 300 million Chinese citizens.
Sinosat II began to fail after a week of operations in early November. The direct broadcast TV satellite was designed for 15 years of operations. The Chinese government only acknowledged the loss after news of the failure began to leak in space business circles. The story was finally aired by the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a Chinese human rights watchdog organization.
According to Chinese space authorities, the satellite's solar panels and its large antennas all failed to deploy while it was being boosted into its stationary orbit above the earth. Story Continues Below
Built by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a huge military and aerospace contractor, Sinosat II was to be operated by Sino Satellite Communications Ltd. (Sinosat).
The satellite was a major new design reportedly equal to U.S. and Western European spacecraft.
Sinosat II was the first spacecraft to use the Dongfanghong — "The East is Red" — DFH-4 main bus under design for over a decade. The DFH-4 design is considered vital for future Chinese military space operations.
The main bus provides electrical power and attitude control for satellites. Sinosat II's huge solar arrays, spanning over 100 feet long, were capable of generating over 10,000 watts of power.
Red Propaganda
Despite efforts by Chinese authorities to play down the loss, the fact is, Beijing's space program has suffered a major hit. In July, Xinhua made great claims about the DFH-4 and Sinosat 2.
"China has also made great progress in manufacturing and establishing its most sophisticated satellite platform, also called Dongfanghong-IV," stated an official release from the government-controlled news agency. "The country is one of a select number in the world that can produce large-scale communication satellites and their platforms," stated Xinhua.
The failure itself is significant in that all the solar panels and the huge array antenna failed to deploy. Other spacecraft have suffered single failures with latches or hinges on solar arrays or antennas, causing them to hang up. However, the failure of all major solar arrays and the antenna deployments indicates that Sinosat II suffered a more complex system breakdown. The problem may have been caused by a major electrical or computer fault, or even a collision of the booster nose faring with the satellite during launch.
Computer software errors have been the cause of major U.S. European satellite losses in the past.
History of Losses and Failures China has also suffered major losses in the past.
In February 1996, a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a Loral Intelsat satellite failed and crashed on lift-off. The Loral Intelsat payload was also destroyed.
The Long March rocket crashed into a nearby Chinese village, killing over 200 innocent civilians. The failure of the Long March also allowed the U.S. to recover a sealed satellite guidance box that revealed a control board of radiation-hardened chips was missing.
Without the control chips, the U.S. satellite would have failed in orbit. The failure would have easily been laid to Loral. Instead, the Long March rocket that killed hundreds of innocent civilians revealed that Chinese engineers removed the control chips and kept them for examination.
The stolen Loral electronics consisted of radiation hardened, encrypted, telemetry chips, stored in a hardened flight control box similar to those found on airliners. The Chinese operation was the perfect crime.
China could blame American engineers when the satellite failed to function. The sabotaged satellite would be given up as space junk and lost forever. The U.S. could not recover the satellite to discover the real cause of the failure without great expense.
Spy Bust The failure of Sinosat II was not the only recent setback for China. Andrew Huang, charged with participating in a scheme to sell telecommunications equipment to Saddam Hussein, is expected to plead guilty.
Huang, a naturalized U.S. citizen was charged with exporting sophisticated fiber optic electronics to Iraq in a conspiracy that directly involves the Chinese government. Andrew Huang was charged in an indictment unsealed in Federal court with conspiring with Chinese officials in a scheme to sell $27 million in telecommunications equipment from 1999 to 2001 to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.
"The government of China was an active participant in this transfer," stated FBI special agent James Trainor. According to the FBI, the Iraqi military used the sophisticated electronics for command and control. The equipment allowed Saddam Hussein to direct his forces when the U.S. invaded the country in 2003.
"With this equipment, they [Iraqi forces] were far better able to respond to U.S. forces," FBI agent Trainor told The Associated Press. The sales violated U.S. law and international sanctions imposed by the U.N. after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The indictments allege that Huang worked with China Electronic Systems Engineering Corp. (CESEC) to arrange the export of millions of dollars worth of fiber-optic cable and transmission systems to Iraq.
According to documents found by the FBI in Huang's home, CESE agreed to pay Huang and his associates between 5 percent and 15 percent commissions on the sales.
China, Clinton, and Saddam
According to the FBI, Huang was acting on behalf of the state-owned Chinese company that it describes as "the technology procurement arm" for the Chinese military. It is true that CESEC is not some simple Chinese electronics company that builds cheap TVs and offers satellite descramblers. U.S. Commerce Dept. documents show that "China Electronics Systems Engineering Company (CESEC)" is "a subsidiary of the People's Liberation Army."
According to a declassified DIA chart, CESEC is under the direct control of the Chinese People's Liberation Army general staff through its communications department. In addition, the case is not without political intrigue. The FBI searched Huang's luggage after he returned from China last year and found photos of him with former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and former Congressman Sam Gejdenson. "During several of Huang's intercepted telephone calls, he has told persons in the PRC [People's Republic of China] that he knows many important and influential people in the United States, and he appears to use these claimed connections to further his business dealings in the PRC," noted the affidavit against Huang.
According to donation records, Huang gave money to several democrats, including Gejdenson. Huang and his wife, Cathy, a nurse, became regular contributors to Gejdenson's political campaigns. Huang helped raise $40,000 for the congressman over three campaigns during the 1990s. Editor's note:
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