Chinese Long March Failure...and partial recovery

[MeteorWayne]

"Breaking a 13-year streak of successful launches, a Chinese Long March rocket failed to deliver an Indonesian communications satellite to its planned orbit Monday.

Carrying the Palapa D telecommunications satellite, a Long March 3B rocket blasted off from the Xichang launch base in southwestern China at 0928 GMT (5:28 a.m. EDT) Monday.

The three-stage launcher, boosted by four liquid-fueled strap-on engines, flew as expected during the first few minutes of the flight.

But a failure occurred about 20 minutes after liftoff as the third stage was scheduled to ignite for its second burn of the mission, according to the official state-run Xinhua news agency.

....

According to U.S. military tracking data, Palapa D is circling Earth on a path with a high point of about 13,150 miles, a low point of approximately 130 miles and an inclination of around 22 degrees.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sf ... ilure.html

 

[Boris_Badenov]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

That's a nasty orbit. I wonder if it intersects any others & how long it'll take to decay.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

With a perigee that low, every orbit will be different, and the lifetime is limited. I wonder if they will attempt to refire the engines to at least raise that, or it won't last too long.

I'll try and find it in a sat database somewhere.

 

[nova2009]

Chinese Long March Failure...but still on-track for recovery

According to report on the China Space website, a re-fire of the engines has been successfully conducted on September 1 and the Palapa D telecommunication satellite is now put on the correct geosynchronous transfer orbit and will be put into the planned geosynchronous stationary orbit in 10 to 12 days. The only drawback is that it also burnt off extra fuels of the satellite to reduce the original planned working life expectancy of the satellite from 15 years to within 10 years or less. Nevertheless, everything on the satellite is now functioning normally and the satellite is expected to enter service in the near future once it reaches the planned geosynchronous orbit. This is a complete turnaround from an apparent failure to an eventual success despite some reduction of service life expectancy as a result of that.

The following is the link to this new development (in Chinese):

http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/s/2009-09-0 ... 64511.html

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

Thanx for the update!

 

[Boris_Badenov]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

Good news indeed. Thank you.

 

[aphh]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

Great development, indeed.

However, the mentioned 130 mile perigee made me think about how much aero-braking would a craft experience with an orbit like that? Perigee at 130 mile would definitely be at the edge of the athmopshere, but on the other hand the craft would fly real fast through the lowest part of the orbit, much faster than, say, ISS at 200 mile orbit.

So would the aero-braking actually provide some lift for the craft in case like that? Like skimming a stone on water, circularizing the orbit?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Chinese Long March Failure...

It would not provide lift, rather it would bleed speed off of the orbit. It probably would circularize the orbit by reducing the apogee. And every perigee would be even lower, leading to eventual reentry and incineration.

 

[nova2009]

Chinese Long March Failure...and amazing final recovery

Indonesian Palapa-D Commercial communications satellite launched by Chinese Long March 3B rocket on August 31 has finally reached the planned geosynchronous stationary orbit on September 9 successfully. Everything is now functioning normally in Palapa-D communications satellite and it will begin communication services shortly as announced by the French Aerospce company which designed and built this communications satellite for Indonesia.

The service life expectancy of this communications satellite was planned to be 15 years but due to the initial faliure of the last stage of Long March 3B to fire to propet it to the geosynchronous transfer orbit at the most optimal moment, it had to spend extra fuels to re-fire the rocket engine almost a full day later to propel and adjust its orbit posture in order to reach the final re-calculated geosynchronous transfer orbit, its service life expectancy is now believed to be around 10 years, that is only 2/3 of the original planned service life expectancy as announced in the World Satellite Service Conference held in Paris, France today.

The following is the link to the news on Palapa-D communications satellite reaching the planned geosynchronous stationary oribit successfully today (in Chinese):

http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/s/2009-09-1 ... 65665.html

 

[nova2009]

Chinese Long March Failure...and amazing final recovery

This is the English version of the news that the Indonesian Satellite Palapa D launched by Chinese Long March 3B rocket that failed to fire on August 31 to propel it to Geosyncrhronous transfer orbit but managed to successfully re-fired to adjust orbit posture since September 1 to reach geosynchronous transfer orbit and finally reaches the preset geosynchronous stationary orbit on September 9 (see news report below)

Indonesian Satellite Reaches Preset Orbit Despite Skewed Launch

File image: Palapa D.
by Staff Writers
Beijing, China (XNA) Sep 14, 2009
Indonesian communication satellite Palapa D entered its geosynchronous orbit on September 9, despite an ignition failure on the rocket that carried the satellite more than a week ago, the satellite's manufacturer said Saturday.
The satellite had conducted a number of orbit maneuvers in order to get into the geosynchronous orbit, and was in normal state, the company said.

Reynald Seznec, Chief Executive Officer of Thales Alenia Space, said on Wednesday that the fuel Palapa D carried was enough for the satellite to operate for about 10 years in its orbit, 2/3 of the contracted service time.

Palapa D was launched atop a China-made Long March 3B rocket on August 31 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.

It did not reach its preset orbit after the third stage of the Long March rocket failed during a second-time ignition. The satellite was captured a few hours later, and was able to conduct orbit maneuvers.

The Palapa D satellite, owned by Indonesian satellite communications company Indosat, was supposed to provide satellite links and broadcasting services for Indonesia and other southeastern Asian nations.

Indosat ordered the satellite from Thales Alenia Space in 2007.


Source: Xinhua News Agency

The following is the link to this news:

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Indone ... h_999.html