by Playfuls Staff |
28th November 2006
China on Tuesday said it plans to replace a broadcast satellite that suffered a "serious technical anomaly" after it was launched into orbit last month.
"The SinoSat-2 [more] satellite, launched on 29th October 2006, has unfortunately suffered serious technical anomaly, causing the deployment of its solar arrays and communications antennas unable to be completed," the state-run SinoSat company said in a statement.
"The spacecraft is thus unable to be put into broadcasting and telecommunications services," SinoSat said.
The replacement for SinoSat-2, which was billed as China's first direct home broadcasting satellite, will take at least three years to develop, the official Xinhua news agency quoted SinoSat spokesman Fan Xinming as saying.
"The substitute satellite will not be a carbon copy of the previous one and we are expecting more technical upgrades," Fan said.
Meanwhile, SinoSat-3 will be launched next May to broadcast radio and television signals, he said.
SinoSat-2 was designed to relay television, digital television, live broadcasts and digital broadband multimedia to China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
It weighs about 5.1 tons and has 22 transponders, with a planned orbital life of 12 years.
The imported SinoSat-1 was launched in July 1998 to broadcast Chinese radio and television signals in the Asia-Pacific region.
China has launched about 50 satellites aboard Long March rockets, which also carried the country's first manned space flight in 2003.
© 2006 DPA
